Scientific Blackpill: Difference between revisions

This study provides some support for the 'exploitation hypothesis' of women's attraction to Dark Triad traits in men, as the women in the study were generally averse to men displaying overtly antisocial traits, evaluating these men more unfavorably in a romantic context.

This suggests that the fake pro-social, glib, superficially charming aspect of psychopathy is what the women found most attractive.

However, the women in the study also responded more favorably to the men with higher levels of affective psychopathy (i.e., those who demonstrated lower levels of empathy and callous behavior) on an innate, subconscious level (higher vocal pitch when leaving a voice message for them). This suggests that women may also strongly favor some of the more overtly socially undesirable psychopathy aspects in a romantic context.

The 'lifestyle' aspects of psychopathy were also evaluated favorably by the women in the study, especially when this evaluation depended on the women's conscious, subjective rating of the men. These 'psychopathic lifestyle' traits include lack of clear life goals, socially parasitic behavior, and irresponsibility, not characteristics that would make these men good providers or prone to commit to long term relationships. The women's preference for psychopathy's lifestyle aspects may stem from these traits being associated with (at least on the surface) a fun-loving, laid-back or adventurous nature, and a general lack of social inhibition. Effectively personality traits that would keep the women constantly emotionally stimulated and prevent her from being bored in the relationship. As women were generally dependent on men for provision throughout their evolutionary history. It could be that women only care about traits that would make men good providers for long-term relationships, perhaps even evaluating them negatively in shorter-term relationships. It could also be that these provider traits were not directly sexually selected at all, and women themselves did not choose these traits throughout history. However, their parents likely selected these traits in men (with these traits being associated with socio-economic success and reliability). Historically, a substantial portion of marriages were arranged by women's parents.  

The lack of a strong female preference for the overtly antisocial aspects of psychopathy, such as aggressive behavior, indicates that these traits may have been evolutionarily selected by allowing ancestral men with these traits to prevail in male-male contests, rather than through a direct female preference for such characteristics.

One would suspect men prone to using violence or the threat of it to be more successful in deterring potential male rivals (such as mate-poachers).

These violent tendencies would also be expected to aid men in ascending social hierarchies based primarily on dominance rather than prestige, by allowing them to survive and acquire resources and higher social status that would have assisted them in attracting women (directly or indirectly) and being able to pass on their genes.