20-05-2025
Women really DO love a bad boy: Men with psychopathic traits are rated as more attractive, study finds
From Christian Bale in American Psycho to Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, psychopaths in films are often played by very handsome actors.
And according to a new study, this is no coincidence.
Researchers from Hunan Normal University have revealed that men with psychopathic traits are rated by women as more attractive.
In their study, the researchers showed over 500 women photos of men with varying degrees of Dark Triad traits - narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy.
The women were asked to rate the men for attractiveness and trustworthiness.
The results revealed that men with high Dark Triad traits were seen as both more trustworthy and more attractive.
'In short-term cooperative settings, individuals with high Dark Triad traits tend to inspire more trust,' said study author, Dr Qi Wu.
'[This is] partly due to being seen as more attractive based on their facial features.'
Psychopathy has been widely studied for decades.
For example, previous studies have uncovered a link between the condition and eye-gaze, sadism, and being single.
However, until now, the link between psychopathy and trustworthiness has remained largely unstudied.
To address this research gap, the team enlisted 592 participants, who were split across four studies.
In the first study, participants were shown neutral facial photos of men with varying levels of Dark Triad traits, and asked to rate them for trustworthiness.
The second study was a trust game, while the third centred on another facial evluation taks - this time requiring participants to rate the men for dominance, extraversion, and attractiveness.
Finally, the fourth study repeated tasks from the second and third studies, involving different participants.
The results revealed that, across all four studies, men with high Dark Triad traits were rated as more trustworthy.
Surprisingly, traits like dominance and extraversion did not play a big role in this effect.
'Notably, their faces still prompt greater trust even when other traits like dominance, extraversion, and attractiveness are accounted for, suggesting facial features have a unique influence on how trustworthy people are perceived,' Dr Wu added.
The study comes shortly after scientists found a link between psychopathy and 'sadism' – deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering or humiliation on others.
Everyday examples of sadism include trolling people online, killing video game characters, killing bugs and even sticking pins on voodoo dolls.
So if you engage in these sadistic behaviours – even if it's just making other people feel embarrassed online – you could be a psychopath.
WOULD YOU KNOW HOW TO SPOT A PSYCHOPATH?
Psychopaths display different traits depending on their disorder.
Common signs include superficial charm, a grandiose notion of self-worth, the need for stimulation and impulsiveness, pathological lying, the ability to manipulate others and a lack of remorse and empathy.
But despite the popular association, not all psychopaths become killers.
Experts claim people usually find psychopaths intriguing, but can't put their finger on why.
This is down to incongruous behaviour because psychopaths tend to do a lot of acting to deceive, or mimic normal reactions, sometimes changing their views and reactions quickly.
For example, Self-professed psychopath Jacob Wells said that upon meeting someone, he tries to become 'the most interesting person they know' and presumably adopts suitable interests and responses to do this.
His response also gives away another common trait - a grandiose notion of self-worth - in that he can be the most interesting person in the room.
Psychopaths occasionally tend to exhibit unconvincing emotional responses, with slip-ups including tone of voice or body language.
This may be because they are unable to understand emotions such as fear and love, but can mimic them.
Generally psychopaths' 'emotions' are shallow and short-lived and there is a manipulative ulterior motive to showing them.
For example, Mr Wells said he offers to do favours and tells false secrets to people to gain their complete trust.
He also displays insincere charm - another trait associated with psychopaths.
He says: 'I keep secrets, and tell them fake secrets to further gain their trust, and once they trust me enough, I ask for favours, reminding them of the favours I did them. I can get literally anything from them, which is incredibly useful.'
Psychopaths typically display an incredible ability to manipulate others and sometimes take pleasure in doing so.
Psychopaths often have an air of superiority about them, perhaps shown by Mr Wells' belief he can spot other psychopaths
