The Attractiveness of Dark Triad Characteristics in Facial Composites with Respect to Gender

Abstract

The attractiveness of the human face is influenced by many different facial characteristics, which convey important information about the other person. Facial features provide signals related to various biological and psychological qualities of an individual supporting mutual mating interactions. Previous studies have mainly focused on the identification of features that indicate positive and desirable characteristics in the potential partner. However, it is equally important for people to react to the presence of negative characteristics. In terms of high-risk features, Dark Triad characteristics, including subclinical narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, play a major role. The study focuses on the assessment of the attractiveness of these three characteristics in female and male computerised facial composites, while taking the gender of the assessor into consideration. The results show that the only negatively assessed characteristics were identified by female evaluators (male narcissism and female psychopathy). The other significant results showed that the Dark Triad characteristics are evaluated as attractive.