The Dark Triad personality: Attractiveness to women

• We create high and low male Dark Triad (DT) characters.
• We obtain ratings from women of the attractiveness of these characters’ personalities.
• Women rate the high DT personality significantly more attractive than the low DT.
• Raters also scored the character on the Big 5. Ratings were as expected from DT self-report data.
• Structural modeling showed attractiveness was not explained by correlated Big 5 traits.

It has been suggested that the Dark Triad (DT) personality constellation is an evolved facilitator of men’s short-term mating strategies. However, previous studies have relied on self-report data to consider the sexual success of DT men. To explore the attractiveness of the DT personality to the other sex, 128 women rated created (male) characters designed to capture high DT facets of personality or a control personality. Physicality was held constant. Women rated the high DT character as significantly more attractive. Moreover, this greater attractiveness was not explained by correlated perceptions of Big 5 traits. These findings are considered in light of mating strategies, the evolutionary ‘arms race’ and individual differences.