Women’s reproductive success and the preference for Dark Triad in men’s faces
Urszula M. Marcinkowska, Minna T. Lyons, Samuli Helle
Women’s preference for male partners that signal either genetic or parenting advantages for their progeny are predicted to be favoured by natural selection. However, currently there are few studies on how such mate preferences are associated with women’s reproductive success. We examined whether preferences for the Dark Triad personality traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) in men’s faces were related to reproductive success in contemporary women. Because out of three Dark Triad features narcissism is most clearly associated with social success and physical and psychological health benefits in men, we predicted that women’s preference for narcissism could be most strongly related to their reproductive success. In line with this, we found that women with preference for high narcissistic men’s faces gave birth to more offspring while controlling for their age, sexual openness (sociosexuality) and self-rated health. Moreover, women with strong preference for Machiavellian male faces reported fewer offspring than their same-aged peers with weak preference, whereas preference for psychopathic men’s faces was unrelated to women’s current number of offspring. These findings suggest that in modern society, women’s preference for some of the Dark Triad traits in men may be related to their reproductive success.
此前，一项耗时长达15年的研究发现，精神病态和有自恋癖倾向的人往往会升至机构的顶层阶级，取得更多财富。根据研究得出的此类发现以及一些人的预测，公司董事会成员临床诊断出心理疾病的概率是普通人的三倍。这也和早前人们总认为商人精神不正常的印象相一致。哈维·克莱克里（Hervey Cleckley）1940年时在自己的代表作《圣洁的面具》（The Mask of Sanity）一书中指出，心理变态的商人工作效率极高，看起来也很正常，但他们每隔一段时间就会沉溺于“婚姻不忠、麻木不仁、酗酒、爱冒险”的窠臼。
