The undesirable Dark Triad? Women dislike Dark Triad male faces across different mating context and socio-ecological conditions

• In an on-line study, we investigated resource scarcity and female choice.
• Women disliked high Dark Triad male facial morphs.
• This pattern was robust to priming conditions and mating contexts.
• In rich environments, women had a slightly less aversion for Machiavellian faces.
• Well-being related to increased preference for Machiavellian faces in poor conditions

In an on-line experiment (N = 365), we investigated women's preference for Dark Triad (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) facial morphs in a resource scarce and wealthy vignette prime study. Overall, women had weak preference for high Dark Triad faces across short and long-term mating contexts. Machiavellian faces were preferred significantly more in the resource wealthy than in the poor environment. Further, women who had higher self-rated well-being in the scarce condition had an increased preference for high Machiavellian male faces. The results imply that women may be sensitive to the costs associated with mating with manipulative men, and that these costs may outweigh any benefits irrespective of the mating context or environmental conditions. However, it may be less costly for women to mate with Machiavellian men in wealthy environments. There also may be important individual differences in how the scarcity priming affects women, which may, in turn, have consequences for mate choice.