Women high on the Dark Triad traits are more attracted to narcissistic males if they are oriented to long term mating and had fewer experiences with unfaithful men

Abstract

Mating success is an important issue in modern societies. One in two adults reports poor mating performance. One solution to this problem is to know as much as possible about human mating preferences. In this research, we investigated if women (N = 223) high on the Dark Triad Traits are attracted to males with high levels of narcissism and tested the moderation effect of women's mating orientation and experience with unfaithful men. We showed that women high on all the Dark Triad traits were attracted to males with high narcissism levels. Women with high levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism, or psychopathy that were oriented to long term mating were more attracted to males high on narcissism. Women high on psychopathy who had many experiences with unfaithful men are less attracted by males with high narcissism levels. Experiences with infidelity did not affect the relationships between women's Machiavellianism and narcissism on the one hand and attraction to males high on narcissism, on the other hand. Our research supports the idea of positive assortative mating of women high on the Dark Triad traits, which is conditional on mating orientation and experience with infidelity.