The Science Of Bad Boys
It’s been a long time since I posted about the hoary old perverse preference many “nice guys” have observed that women have for bad men — it’s one of those debates that generates much more heat than light. But now there’s an article in New Science discussing scientific proof that bad guys really do get the girls:
NICE guys knew it, now two studies have confirmed it: bad boys get the most girls. The finding may help explain why a nasty suite of antisocial personality traits known as the “dark triad” persists in the human population, despite their potentially grave cultural costs.
The traits are the self-obsession of narcissism; the impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous behaviour of psychopaths; and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism. At their extreme, these traits would be highly detrimental for life in traditional human societies. People with these personalities risk being shunned by others and shut out of relationships, leaving them without a mate, hungry and vulnerable to predators.
But being just slightly evil could have an upside: a prolific sex life, says Peter Jonason at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. “We have some evidence that the three traits are really the same thing and may represent a successful evolutionary strategy.”
Jonason and his colleagues subjected 200 college students to personality tests designed to rank them for each of the dark triad traits. They also asked about their attitudes to sexual relationships and about their sex lives, including how many partners they’d had and whether they were seeking brief affairs.
The study found that those who scored higher on the dark triad personality traits tended to have more partners and more desire for short-term relationships, Jonason reported at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society meeting in Kyoto, Japan, earlier this month. But the correlation only held in males.
Thanks to Sexoteric for the link.
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We’re animals after all! It seems to work out though. The James Bonds of the world may get the girls for a little while, but once 007 has had his way with them, they usually settle down with someone stable, like the professor who did this study :) It’s interesting to note that most male fantasies involve being dominated by strong women.
Sam H., your last sentence made me LOL. Sure, troll the internets for long enough and you’ll discover the huge contingent of guys who fantasize about being dominated by strong women — it’s surely a common male fantasy or fetish, that I’d say is beyond dispute. But “most male fantasies” as an empirical claim? That would be a very hard claim to establish, and I’m — to put it mildly — skeptical.
I think I’ve seen this study talked about elsewhere, and the funny part is definitely that they took these guys who scored high on narcissism and deception and asked them about their sex lives…and believed what they said. *snicker*
Sex is one area where surveying people at one discreet point in time perhaps isn’t that useful, people tend to adjust their answers based on what they think or want, rather than know or actually remember. Better to do a longitudinal study and survey them a number of times. More expensive sure, but you get better results. Hard to study sex lives though, unlike say driving habits or work practices.
Check out the Cheeky Tomato post. But who knows – maybe it’s simply reflection of dudes who are into phone sex.
http://sexwiths....html
As a college student who’s seen it first hand way too many times… yes, I definitely agree. Glad that there’s scientific evidence to back it up now! Now if only we could figure out exactly why it happens, since the article seems to stress that the ‘triad’ is detrimental to society.
200 college students?
200 college students?
I am so fracking tired of psychological researchers who think that 200 college students constitutes a representative sampling.
This is not scientific proof. This is not even very good evidence. This is nothing more than an interesting preliminary finding.
I think what’s interesting about this study is that is states bad guys are more prone for short relationships. But I think this only works because bad guys attract good girls who are sheltered and don’t know better. But on the flip side bad girls suck in good guys and treat them the same. I think the bad boy syndrome is just our sub-conscious telling us the the bad boy will be the better protector.