Bad guys really do get the most girls
18 June 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Mason Inman
Two words - Bill Clinton; Maybe JFK too
Narcissists brilliant workers, but terrible colleagues
15 March 2002
Peter Jonason, New Mexico State University
David Schmitt, Bradley University
Christopher von Rueden
Barbara Oakley of Oakland University
Matthew Keller, University of Colorado
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.
“High 'dark triad' scorers are more likely to try to poach other people's partners for a brief affair”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.
James Bond epitomises this set of traits, Jonason says. "He's clearly disagreeable, very extroverted and likes trying new things - killing people, new women." Just as Bond seduces woman after woman, people with dark triad traits may be more successful with a quantity-style or shotgun approach to reproduction, even if they don't stick around for parenting. "The strategy seems to have worked. We still have these traits," Jonason says.
This observation seems to hold across cultures. David Schmitt of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, presented preliminary results at the same meeting from a survey of more than 35,000 people in 57 countries. He found a similar link between the dark triad and reproductive success in men. "It is universal across cultures for high dark triad scorers to be more active in short-term mating," Schmitt says. "They are more likely to try and poach other people's partners for a brief affair."
Barbara Oakley of Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, says that the studies "verify something a lot of people have conjectured about".
Christopher von Rueden of the University of California at Santa Barbara says that the studies are important because they confirm that personality variation has direct fitness consequences.
"They still have to explain why it hasn't spread to everyone," says Matthew Keller of the University of Colorado in Boulder. "There must be some cost of the traits." One possibility, both Keller and Jonason suggest, is that the strategy is most successful when dark triad personalities are rare. Otherwise, others would become more wary and guarded.
From issue 2661 of New Scientist magazine, 18 June 2008, page 12
newscientist.com
Narcissists brilliant workers, but terrible colleagues
09:55 15 March 2002
NewScientist.com news service
Emma Young, Blackpool
Narcissism
British Psychological Society
Narcissistic people do not make pleasant colleagues, but they perform better than average at tasks that would daunt others, according to new US research.
"Narcissists will leave everyone else to do the drudgery and come in at the end to take all the credit, or show up when there's some opportunity to be admired," says Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, who led the research.
"But if you need someone to make a crucial presentation or to do something spectacular, they could be good to have around," he adds.
The study is the first to find that narcissistic people perform better on tasks that give them the opportunity for glory, Baumeister says.
In the mirror
The team studied 248 people, who completed questionnaires assessing the degree to which they agreed with statements such as: I am an extraordinary person, I like to look at myself in the mirror, the world would be a better place if I ruled it.
They then took part in four tests: the children's board game Operation (a test of manual skill), darts, and measures of arithmetic and creativity.
People who scored higher on the narcissism measure performed on average about 20 per cent better on the tests when they were given the chance to shine, says Baumeister.
"For example, we'd have an audience present or not present. Or we'd tell them that to do well, they'd have to outperform 95 per cent of other people, or only 50 per cent. Being better than average isn't much incentive to a narcissist, but 95 per cent was something they could really shoot for," he says.
Noxious self esteem
When given a high or public target to aim for, the more narcissistic people also performed better than those with lower narcissism scores.
But the trait is poorly understood, Baumeister says: "We are at a fairly early stage of finding out about these people and what makes them tick."
Most people have a degree of narcissism, but at its extreme it is characterised by a "noxious sense of self esteem," he says. "But why people grow up to be narcissists is a really important question and we do not have enough data on that."
Baumeister presented his research at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society in Blackpool.
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