Study: people with ‘dark’ personality traits prefer partners like themselves

Researchers led by Katharina P. da Silva and Jaroslava V. Valentova of the Institute of Psychology at the University of São Paulo examined how the so-called Dark Triad – narcissism, Machiavellianism (a tendency to manipulate others) and psychopathy – shapes partner choice. The study was published in the journal ‘Evolution and Human Behavior’; the science site PsyPost reported on it on 19 October. A total of 400 adults in Brazil aged 18 to 60, around 28 on average, were surveyed online.

The result: people who scored higher on these traits themselves also found them more desirable in a partner, with correlations of roughly 0.59 to 0.69 depending on the trait. The researchers call this homogamy, a preference for similar others. In a second part, participants rated short written profiles on a scale of 1 to 7: a helpful, prosocial person scored 5.92, a profile with ‘dark’ traits 2.40, and one with an added conviction for assault 1.52. Fame, wealth or good looks did not make the profile with a conviction statistically more attractive. Prosociality remains ‘a far more desirable trait’ in mate choice, da Silva said according to PsyPost.

The study has limits: it used a convenience sample of mostly educated internet users recruited through the university and social media, and it measured stated preferences rather than actual relationships. Average scores for the dark traits were low, which can inflate similarity effects, there were no attention checks, and only one violent offence was tested as a criminal record. The PsyPost report gives no information on funding.