A recent study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences has uncovered connections between dark personality traits and various sexual attitudes and behaviors. These traits, known as the dark core of personality, are associated with mate poaching, romantic jealousy, openness to casual sex, hostile and benevolent sexism, and attitudes toward sexual harassment.
Dark personality traits, which encompass antagonistic, malevolent, and socially aversive behaviors, have been previously linked to negative social outcomes. However, most prior research has focused on a limited range of these traits, particularly the “dark triad” of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. The new study aimed to expand the understanding by exploring a broader spectrum of dark traits.
The researchers hypothesized that higher levels of these dark traits would be associated with more problematic sexual attitudes and behaviors. Understanding these relationships could have practical implications for addressing social issues related to sexual behavior and developing interventions to mitigate the negative impact of these dark traits on society.
The researchers conducted a study involving 410 participants. These participants, comprising 89 men and 321 women with an average age of 35, were recruited through social media and a university online recruitment system.
The core of the study revolved around assessing dark personality traits using a well-established instrument called the D35. This questionnaire contains 35 items designed to measure five higher-order personality dimensions: callousness, deceitfulness, narcissistic entitlement, sadism, and vindictiveness.
Participants rated their agreement with statements such as “My own pleasure is all that matters” (reflecting callousness) and “I’ll say anything to get what I want” (reflecting deceitfulness) on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
The study employed various scales to evaluate participants’ sexual attitudes and behaviors:
- The Mate Poaching Scale asked participants to report their attempts to attract someone already in an exclusive relationship. They responded to three questions about short-term, long-term, and new exclusive relationships, indicating the frequency of these behaviors on a scale from “never” to “more than twice.”
- The Romantic Jealousy Scale measured dispositional jealousy with six items. Participants rated their jealousy in romantic relationships, the intensity of their feelings, and how much their jealousy has been problematic.
- The Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory assessed participants’ sociosexual attitudes and behaviors. This inventory included questions about the number of sexual partners in the past year and participants’ agreement with statements like “Sex without love is okay.” The responses helped gauge both the behavioral and attitudinal aspects of sociosexual orientation.
- The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory evaluated hostile and benevolent sexism through 22 items. Participants rated their agreement with statements such as “Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist” (hostile sexism) and “A good woman should be set on a pedestal by her man” (benevolent sexism).
- The Sexual Harassment Attitudes Scale gauged participants’ tolerance of sexual harassment. This scale included items like “One of the problems with sexual harassment is that some women can’t take a joke,” with higher scores indicating greater acceptance of such behaviors.
One of the key findings was the strong association between deceitfulness and mate poaching. Individuals who scored high in deceitfulness were more likely to attempt to attract someone already in an exclusive relationship. Interestingly, this association was found to be stronger in men than in women, suggesting that deceitfulness might play a more prominent role in mate poaching behaviors among men. However, this sex difference did not hold in sensitivity analyses, indicating that further research is needed to confirm this finding.
Narcissistic entitlement emerged as a significant predictor of romantic jealousy. Participants with higher levels of narcissistic entitlement were more prone to experience jealousy in romantic relationships. This finding is consistent with previous research suggesting that individuals who feel entitled and superior to others are more likely to react negatively when they perceive threats to their romantic exclusivity.
Higher levels of sadism were linked to a less restricted sociosexual attitude, suggesting that individuals who derive pleasure from others’ suffering might be more open to casual sexual relationships. On the other hand, narcissistic entitlement and vindictiveness were associated with more restricted sociosexual attitudes, particularly among women. This suggests a complex interplay between dark traits and sexual attitudes, where certain traits may lead to more conservative views on casual sex, especially in different gender contexts.
In terms of sociosexual behavior, deceitfulness was the only trait significantly related, with higher levels of deceitfulness associated with a more unrestricted sociosexual behavior. This indicates that deceitful individuals are more likely to engage in casual sex, possibly due to their tendency to manipulate situations to their advantage.
When examining ambivalent sexism, which includes both hostile and benevolent sexism, the study found distinct connections with dark personality traits. Narcissistic entitlement was positively associated with benevolent sexism, indicating that those who feel entitled might also hold chivalrous but patronizing attitudes towards women. Callousness, on the other hand, was linked to hostile sexism, reflecting a more aggressive and antagonistic view of women who challenge traditional gender roles.
Vindictiveness had a strong positive association with both types of sexism and with attitudes toward sexual harassment. This finding is significant as it suggests that individuals who are vengeful and spiteful are more likely to hold sexist attitudes and to tolerate or even endorse sexual harassment. A mediation analysis revealed that hostile sexism mediated the relationship between vindictiveness and attitudes toward sexual harassment. This means that vindictive individuals’ acceptance of sexual harassment is partly explained by their hostile sexist views.
Despite its insightful findings, the study had some limitations. It was conducted on a convenience sample recruited through social media, which limits the generalizability of the results. Additionally, the use of self-report measures could introduce response biases. Finally, the study’s cross-sectional design cannot establish causality or changes over time. Longitudinal studies are needed to explore how dark personality traits and sexual attitudes evolve.
“To conclude, this study has found that higher-order traits of the dark core relate to self-reported mate poaching, romantic jealousy, sociosexual orientation, hostile and benevolent sexism, and attitudes toward sexual harassment,” the researchers concluded. “These finding might be of interest to health care providers working with individuals (and couples) on relationship and sexual issues, and might have practical implications in terms of screening for high-risk individuals who might benefit from inclusion in interventions targeting relationship or sexual wellbeing (e.g., sexual harassment workshops).”
“Of course, more research is needed to build on the preliminary findings presented here, but we hope that these findings can contribute to further research, theory development, and eventually clinical practice. We recommend further research on the dark core using prospective designs and samples from a variety of world-regions, cultural backgrounds, and socioeconomic conditions.”
The study, “The dark core of personality predicts mate poaching, jealousy, sociosexual orientation, ambivalent sexism, and attitudes toward sexual harassment,” was authored by Katrina Craib, Sharon Patterson, Sylvain Laborde, and Mark S. Allen.