Dark traits: Sometimes hot, and sometimes not? Female preferences for Dark Triad faces depend on sociosexuality and contraceptive use




Marcinkowska UM, Helle S, Lyons MT

PublisherPERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

2015

Personality and Individual Differences

PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

PERS INDIV DIFFER

86

369

373

5

0191-8869

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.06.030



Although the Dark Triad personality (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) has been researched widely, only few studies have investigated women's preferences for men who present high and low Dark Triad features. With an on-line two-alternative forced choice questionnaire we investigated the interaction between preferences of 1962 Finnish women for facial stimuli that differed in the intensity of the Dark Triad traits, accounting for mating context, contraceptive use, and sexual openness (sociosexuality). Among noncontraceptive-using women, unrestricted sociosexuality was positively correlated with preference for high narcissistic male faces, whereas in contraceptive-using women, sociosexuality correlated negatively with preference for high Machiavellian male faces. We suggest that i) facial cues to Dark Triad traits are detectable by women, but ii) their effect on the judgments of attractiveness may vary depending on sociosexuality and contraceptive use, and that iii) preference for narcissism follows similar variation trends as masculinity preference, depending on sociosexuality and the use of hormonal contraception. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.




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