Two studies have confirmed what most nice guys have been complaining about since time immemorial. The first had a small pool of samples, all of 200 college students, but the second is a survey of 35,000 people across 57 countries. Both studies seem to indicate that those with the so-called 'dark triad' of personality traits have a good chance of reproductive success, despite being jackasses.
.pdf from New Scientist.
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...
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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.
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