The Scientific Blackpill is about understanding the nature of human social and sexual behavior, especially female mate choice, with a particular focus on (often controversial) evolutionary psychological perspectives.

Research detailing the role of traits that are (or are plausibly argued to be) mostly immutable, in mediating social and sexual exclusion is strongly emphasized in this compilation, per the blackpill, however, this page can be considered somewhat distinct from the rest of the wiki, which is mostly non-pill-ideological.

These traits include overall physical attractiveness, facial bone structure, stature, muscularity, body frame size, race, personality, local sex ratios, intelligence, ability, health, mental health, and social and economic status.

The page tries to maintain a neutral tone and focus on conveying the findings of the researchers cited without judgment. However, portions of the article are demarcated as "discussion" sections, which may occasionally contain un-sourced speculation or writing from a non-neutral POV.

Women tend to be attracted to the Dark Triad—narcissism, manipulativeness, & psychopathy [ edit | edit source ]

The dark triad consists of three personality dimensions:

Narcissism (heightened sense of self-importance)

Machiavellianism (manipulativeness)

Psychopathy (low empathy)

These traits are often quantified by a quick scoring tool called the dirty dozen:

I tend to manipulate others to get my way. I tend to lack remorse. I tend to want others to admire me. I tend to be unconcerned with the morality of my actions. I have used deceit or lied to get my way. I tend to be callous or insensitive. I have used flattery to get my way. I tend to seek prestige or status. I tend to be cynical. I tend to exploit others toward my own end. I tend to expect special favors from others. I want others to pay attention to me.

In a study by Carter et al. (2014), 128 women were presented with male characters of varying degrees of dark triad personality. Physicality was held constant. Men with dark traits were rated as dramatically more attractive to women compared to control characters who lacked these traits (with >99.9% statistical certainty, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the attractiveness of these dark traits was not explained by other characteristics like extroversion.

Discussion:

This suggests personality does matter to women, but not in the manner popularly claimed. Rather than preferring empathetic and responsible men, many are most attracted to narcissistic, manipulative and psychopathic men.

Evolutionary psychology may be able to explain this phenomenon. Women evolved to be dependent and choosy due to their greater parental investment. This caused men to evolve to be taller and stronger in an evolutionary arms race competing for mating opportunities. In response to this, women are thought to have evolved to choose the strongest and most dominant man available to be protected from men attempting to coerce them into sex, male violence in general (bodyguard hypothesis; Wilson & Mesnick, 1997) and to get access to high-quality foods and resources (Geary 2004). This aspect of human sexuality can be traced back to some of our oldest ancestor species, e.g. lizards, in which female animals submit themselves to dominant males (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989). Dark traits such as low empathy and cruelty may have proven useful in male intrasexual competition (Kruger & Fitzgerald 2011), so these traits and women's attraction to them might have co-evolved as a socially parasitic reproductive strategy (Gervais 2018).

Dark behavior patterns may additionally serve as honest/hard-to-fake signals of high status as only high status men can get away behaving in an overtly anti-social manner. Status, in this case, is not only determined by aggression and intimidation, but also by income, looks, competence etc. Men may also have been selected to mimic such dominance signals (Puts 2015). The fact that not all men exhibit dark traits indicates that men have evolved diverse strategies of status ascension (prestige vs dominance strategy; Kruger 2015, Gervais 2018).

The sensitivity of this topic could even cause women to downplay their attraction dark traits because it contradicts laws and norms against violence as well as feminist ideals that women should be the equal of men rather than submitting to them. Women may thus be even more attracted to such men than they admit (social desirability bias). Women's preferences for psychopathic men are possibly related to rape fantasies. After all, it requires low empathy to rape someone.

Data:

Condition Attractiveness Mean SD High DT 4.44 1.17 Low DT 3.34 1.17 Cohen's d = 0.94

Quotes:

From Seffrin (2016): Men who show a willingness to take risks, have a high self-esteem, and a body that is physically imposing possess qualities that women may find desirable, but these qualities are also correlated with aggressive behavior (Apicella, 2014; Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996; Brewer & Howarth, 2012; Frederick & Haselton, 2007; Sellet al., 2009). […] Men who would use physical violence to gain a competitive advantage may possess other qualities that are sexually appealing to women […]. This much has been suggested in research by Rebellon and Manasse (2004) who found that highly delinquent males report relative success in attracting female dating partners. Rebellon and Manasse (2004) interpret these findings using a derivative of sexual selection theory known as the “handicap principle” (Zahavi, 1975). The handicap principle suggests that behaviors that are potentially costly to males—such as fighting and showing disregard for authority, but which are valued by females, perhaps for the strength and bravado they symbolize—will be implemented as tactics in male sexual competition (see also Palmer & Tilley, 1995). Research on sexual selection theory also suggests that a preference for these qualities may have itself been selected for in females (Puts, 2010). This would help to explain why men have a penchant for violent behavior in the first place, in the sense that male aggression, and a preference for it among females, were selected for in the course of human prehistory. Partnering with an aggressive and/or criminally involved male may have its advantages, especially in an unsafe environment where threats of violence are commonplace. Yet displays of dominance and physical aggression play just as well to an all male audience, who serve as a source of encouragement and validation, thereby reinforcing the behavior as well as its symbolic value in the peer culture (Messerschmidt, 1993).

This would help to explain why men have a penchant for violent behavior in the first place, in the sense that male aggression, and a preference for it among females, were selected for in the course of human prehistory. Partnering with an aggressive and/or criminally involved male may have its advantages, especially in an unsafe environment where threats of violence are commonplace. Yet displays of dominance and physical aggression play just as well to an all male audience, who serve as a source of encouragement and validation, thereby reinforcing the behavior as well as its symbolic value in the peer culture (Messerschmidt, 1993). Psychopathic traits (lack of morality; interpersonal hostility) are beneficial to a short-term strategy and are correlated with unrestricted pattern of sexual behaviour. (Carter, 2014)

References:

Carter GL, Campbell AC, Muncer S. 2014. The Dark Triad personality: Attractiveness to women. Personality and Individual Differences. 56: 57-61. [Abstract] [FullText]

Personality and Individual Differences. 56: 57-61. [Abstract] [FullText] Geary DC, Vigil J, Byrd‐Craven J. 2004. Evolution of human mate choice. Journal of sex research, 41(1), pp.27-42. [FullText]

Journal of sex research, 41(1), pp.27-42. [FullText] Wilson M, Mesnick SL. 1997. An empirical test of the bodyguard hypothesis. In Feminism and evolutionary biology (pp. 505-511). Springer, Boston, MA. [Abstract]

In Feminism and evolutionary biology (pp. 505-511). Springer, Boston, MA. [Abstract] Puts DA, Bailey DH, Reno PL. 2015. Contest competition in men. The handbook of evolutionary psychology. pp. 1-8.[Abstract]

pp. 1-8.[Abstract] Kruger DJ, Fitzgerald CJ. 2011. Reproductive strategies and relationship preferences associated with prestigious and dominant men. Personality and Individual Differences. 50(3):365-9. [Abstract]

Personality and Individual Differences. 50(3):365-9. [Abstract] Gervais N. 2018. ADHD, Autism, and Psychopathy as Life Strategies: The Role of Risk Tolerance on Evolutionary Fitness. [FullText]

[FullText] Seffrin PM. 2016. The Competition–Violence Hypothesis: Sex, Marriage, and Male Aggression. [Abstract]

[Abstract] Eibl-Eibesfeldt I. 1989. Pair Formation, Courtship, Sexual Love. In: Human Ethology. Rougtledge. [Excerpt]

More psychopathic men tend to receive higher attractiveness ratings from women [ edit | edit source ]

Brazil & Forth conducted two studies that examined women's preferences for psychopathic males. Forty-six men were photographed from the waist up and rated by (N = 11) individuals blind to the purpose of the study. The men were then requested to complete the Self-Report Psychopathy scale, used to measure the four-facet structure of psychopathy.

The four facets of psychopathy, according to this inventory, are defined as: interpersonal (manipulative and exploitative behaviors), affective (lack of remorse and empathy, cruelty to others), lifestyle (parasitic behavior, lack of clear life goals, irresponsibility), and antisocial (overt violent or criminal behaviors).

The subjects completed additional self-report inventories to measure their level of social intelligence and socio-sexual orientation (a measurement of an individual's openness to casual sex).

The first study had males participate in a simulated dating scenario with a female confederate (introduced as a female volunteer). After initial prompting by the female confederate, the conversations were allowed to proceed naturally between the participants and the confederate for 90-120 seconds.

It was found that men who reported having sex were generally higher in levels of psychopathic traits, as measured by the self-report psychopathy inventory (M = 169.33, SD = 22.65 for the men who had sex vs. M = 142.08, SD = 19.84 for those not having sex). The various facets of psychopathy (apart from antisocial tendencies) were found to be generally related to greater social processing capability (ability to "read" other's intentions and emotional states).

Study 2 tested examined women's response to men varying in levels of psychopathy. One hundred eight women viewed the interactions between the male participants from study 1 and the female confederate. The women then rated the men on how desirable they would be to date. After rating the videos, the participants were then instructed to leave a pretend voicemail message for the men, in the context of them requesting a date with the men.

The men were sorted into three different groups of physical attractive based on the judgment of the previously mentioned independent raters (women N = 7, men N = 4): significantly below average attractiveness, somewhat below average attractiveness, and average attractiveness, to control for the effects of physical attractiveness on the women's attraction to the men. The researchers then used software to analyze the vocal pitch of the women who left the voice messages to the males, vocal pitch being considered an objective, subconscious, measurement of female sexual attraction based on prior research.

It was found that women nearly always had a higher vocal pitch when leaving a message for a more psychopathic man vs. a less psychopathic man of the same general level of physical attractiveness.

Further analysis of the data suggested that the affective traits of psychopathy, such as superficial charm, callousness, and lack of empathy, were the most desired by women. In contrast, the more overtly violent antisocial traits were generally unfavored. The authors also noted that psychopathy's affective traits were strongly linked to sexual sadism and intimate partner violence in men. They noted this has concerning implications on the romantic relationships these men would be expected to have relative ease at initiating, compared to less psychopathic men.

Discussion: This study provides some support for the 'exploitation hypothesis' of women's attraction to Dark Triad traits in men, as the women in the study were generally averse to men displaying overtly antisocial traits, evaluating these men more unfavorably in a romantic context. This suggests that the fake pro-social, glib, superficially charming aspect of psychopathy is what the women found most attractive. However, the women in the study also responded more favorably to the men with higher levels of affective psychopathy (i.e., those who demonstrated lower levels of empathy and callous behavior) on an innate, subconscious level (higher vocal pitch when leaving a voice message for them). This suggests that women may also strongly favor some of the more overtly socially undesirable psychopathy aspects in a romantic context.

The 'lifestyle' aspects of psychopathy were also evaluated favorably by the women in the study, especially when this evaluation depended on the women's conscious, subjective rating of the men. These 'psychopathic lifestyle' traits include lack of clear life goals, socially parasitic behavior, and irresponsibility, not characteristics that would make these men good providers or prone to commit to long term relationships. The women's preference for psychopathy's lifestyle aspects may stem from these traits being associated with (at least on the surface) a fun-loving, laid-back or adventurous nature, and a general lack of social inhibition. Effectively personality traits that would keep the women constantly emotionally stimulated and prevent her from being bored in the relationship. As women were generally dependent on men for provision throughout their evolutionary history. It could be that women only care about traits that would make men good providers for long-term relationships, perhaps even evaluating them negatively in shorter-term relationships. It could also be that these provider traits were not directly sexually selected at all, and women themselves did not choose these traits throughout history. However, their parents likely selected these traits in men (with these traits being associated with socio-economic success and reliability). Historically, a substantial portion of marriages were arranged by women's parents.

The lack of a strong female preference for the overtly antisocial aspects of psychopathy, such as aggressive behavior, indicates that these traits may have been evolutionarily selected by allowing ancestral men with these traits to prevail in male-male contests, rather than through a direct female preference for such characteristics. One would suspect men prone to using violence or the threat of it to be more successful in deterring potential male rivals (such as mate-poachers). These violent tendencies would also be expected to aid men in ascending social hierarchies based primarily on dominance rather than prestige, by allowing them to survive and acquire resources and higher social status that would have assisted them in attracting women (directly or indirectly) and being able to pass on their genes.

This study seemingly indicates a female preference for men that are unsuited towards longer-term relationships. This preference, no matter how slight it may be, seems to provide some support to arguments that many modern women are making maladaptive mate choices due to an evolutionary mismatch between historical and contemporary mating contexts. Of course, one could argue this also applies to men as their mate choices were also often constrained in the past, though the consequences of possible spousal abandonment would be far less harsh for them.

Quotes:

When comparing two men, those higher in psychopathic traits tended to receive higher ratings from women when considering the magnitude difference in psychopathic traits between the two men.

Of the facets, lifestyle traits provided the strongest link to desirability ratings from women. These traits include disinhibition, lack of responsibility, and having a sensation-seeking orientation.

Using voice pitch instead of subjective ratings as an indicator of desirability, the results did not suggest a preference for overall psychopathy. Post hoc exploratory analyses did, however, suggest affective traits elicited more interest and antisocial traits less interest based on voice pitch increasing and decreasing, respectively.

The lack of preference for antisocial traits may suggest that if they are contributing to appearing as an attractive mate, they may be doing so through derogating and dominating potential rivals rather than generating direct appeal.

References:

Brazil, KJ. Forth AE. 2019. Psychopathy and the Induction of Desire: Formulating and Testing an Evolutionary Hypothesis. Evolutionary Psychological Science, pp 1-18. [Abstract]

On PornHub, women consume most of the porn where women are violently raped and abused [ edit | edit source ]

Dr. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a former Google data scientist, was given complete access to PornHub's search and views data. He found that women were more than twice as likely as men to search for videos where women are abused, coerced into sex, or are depicted as being raped. Women preferred videos with tags like "painful anal crying", "public disgrace", "extreme brutal gangbang", "forced", or "rape".

25% of all straight porn searches by women were for videos featuring violence against women, and 5% of women's searches were for videos where women are raped. While not necessarily representative of all porn consumption by women, Pornhub is, according to website analytics firm Simpleweb, the adult website with the most global traffic (and is ranked 8th for total traffic worldwide out of all websites), as of February 2019.

Quotes:

A quarter of straight porn searches by women are for videos featuring violence against their own sex.

Five percent of searches by women are for content portraying nonconsensual sex.

Search rates for these more extreme types of sexual content are at least twice as common among women than men.

If there is a genre of porn in which violence is perpetrated against a woman, analysis of the data shows that it almost always appeals disproportionately to women. (Rahman, 2017)

References:

Rahman S. 2017. Why Are So Many Women Searching for Ultra-Violent Porn? Vice. [News]

Vice. [News] Stephens-Davidowitz S. 2017. Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. Dey Street Books.

Dey Street Books. Armstrong, M. 2019. The World's Most Popular Websites. Statista. [Web]

62% of women have fantasies about rape and other forced sex acts [ edit | edit source ]

A team of researchers from the University of North Texas and the University of Notre Dame played 355 young women a rape fantasy over headphones to investigate how aroused they became:

The tape's material tells the tale of a male protagonist who is strongly attracted to the female character. He expresses a desire for sex with her, but she's clearly unresponsive. He attempts to convince her, without success, and she continues to refuse his advances. The male character then overpowers and rapes her. She resists throughout, and at no time gives consent. However, as the man is attractive to her and provides erotic stimulation, she does experience gratification from the forced sex.

In questioning following this, researchers found that overall, 62% of participants reported having a rape fantasy of some type.

Of the women who reported having the most common rape fantasy ("being overpowered or forced by a man to surrender sexually against my will"), 40% had it at least once a month and 20% had it at least once a week.

Women reported that 45% of their rape fantasies were completely erotic and 46% both erotic and aversive. Only 9% of the fantasies are completely aversive.

Interestingly, even women espousing feminist values have the same inclination toward rape fantasies as other women (if not slightly more).

Discussion:

Making things worse, it is conceivable that women underreport their fantasies about rape as well as their positive emotion towards it, in order to avoid being socially undesirable given the taboos surrounding the topic.

The frequency of women's rape fantasies may be related to women's preference for low-empathy males. After all, raping someone requires indifference to their feelings. The ability to rape may also act as an honest signal of physical strength and high status. Alternatively (though these two things are of course not mutually exclusive) such tendencies may be reinforced by fisherian runaway sexual selection feedback loops, as the traits that predispose a man to raping are likely substantially heritable. So selecting for a man with 'rapist genes' would ensure that her male offspring inherit these genes, which would thus increase said male offspring's chance of becoming polygynous (in certain opportunistic contexts) which would serve to increase her fitness in an evolutionary sense.

Women's general reluctance to have sex and wish to be forced into sex may also test men for their physical strength, as women depend on a physically strong man to be protected, e.g. from other contenders (bodyguard hypothesis). This is related to the male dominance/female surrender pattern that is common in the animal world. The male must present a display of dominance, continue pursuing the female even in the face of rejection, and sometimes even physically subdue the female coerce her into sex (Fisher, 1999). This is possibly a test of his power, fitness, and status. Fisher also suggests that females may have a natural desire to surrender to a pre-selected, dominant male. Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1989) suggests this behavior derives from primitive brain regions that have evolved to insure successful mating in reptiles, birds, and mammals.

The fact that many or even most women desire to be dominated reminds one of certain redpill insights as it is actually something men can arguably improve on. However, it remains a blackpill insofar as men are continually heavily shamed by feminists and risk being accused of sexual harassment for their attempts at dominating a female. Due to their evolutionary history, women are also likely very sensitive to false signals of male dominance or status which would make the mimicry of such behavior even riskier. Such a cultural practice is also arguably dysgenic in the sense that it appears to select for psychopathic, impulsive, or just plain unintelligent men who either don't care about such shaming or lack the knowledge of social norms that would restrain them from behaving in this fashion.

Data:

Forced/Rape Sex Act Women With Fantasy Any forced/rape sex act 62% Forced sex by a man 52% Being raped by a man 32% Forced oral sex by a man 28% Being incapacitated 24% Forced anal sex 16% Forced sex by a woman 17% Being raped by a woman 9% Forced oral sex by a woman 9%

Figures:

Women's rape fantasies

References:

Bivona JM, Critelli JW, Clark MJ. 2011. Women’s Rape Fantasies: An Empirical Evaluation of the Major Explanations. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41(5): 1107-1119. [Abstract]

Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41(5): 1107-1119. [Abstract] Bivona JM, Critelli JW. 2009. The nature of women's rape fantasies: an analysis of prevalence, frequency, and contents. J Sex Res. 46(1):33-45. [Abstract]

J Sex Res. 46(1):33-45. [Abstract] Critelli JW. and Bivona JM., 2008. Women's erotic rape fantasies: An evaluation of theory and research. Journal of Sex Research, 45(1), pp.57-70. [Abstract]

Journal of Sex Research, 45(1), pp.57-70. [Abstract] Eibl-Eibesfeldt I. 2017. Human ethology. Routledge. [Excerpt]

Routledge. [Excerpt] Fisher H. 1999. The first sex. New York: Random House.

New York: Random House. Persaud R. 2012. Women's Sexual Fantasies—the Latest Scientific Research. Huffington Post. [News]

50% of female porn viewers admitted to watching porn involving extreme violence against women [ edit | edit source ]

Researchers in Italy conducted a study regarding the pornography usage habits of 12th grade students in high schools and youths 18-25 years old involved in vocational training.

The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding whether they had watched pornography and if they were currently watching pornography. They were then queried as to the content of the pornography they viewed, from the list, a variable called "violence against women" was constructed, which was defined as pornography that included any of the following violent content: "the woman is tortured, mutilated, raped, gang raped, humiliated (the man/ men urinate or defecate on her), killed, or subjected to other violent sex."

The participants were when asked as to whether they viewed this content of their own accord or whether they had been goaded or coerced into watching it by a boyfriend/girlfriend or adult.

Finally, the participants were asked questions regarding their experiences of prior victimization, including whether they had been previously subjected to physical, emotional, or sexual violence.

Of the 303 participants, 49.2% were girls. 61.1% said they currently watched pornography.

50.2% of the girls who watched pornography, reported watching violent pornography, including pornography that contained extreme depictions of sexual violence against women. It was also found that girls who had reported experiencing sexual victimization were much more likely to watch pornography, especially violent pornography, (Odds-ratio 3.27 for women subject to sexual violence, who reported currently watching pornography). Only 6.6.% of girls reported being pressured into watching pornography by another person, with most reporting they watched it for personal enjoyment, and no association was found between participants reporting being a victim of sexual violence and them being coerced into watching the pornography.

Discussion:

It is also imaginable that, due to a generally greater social desirability bias related to female porn use (especially the extreme content that was included in the survey, i.e. snuff films, rape, pornography involving minors, and bestiality), that these figures substantially underestimate the number of girls who regularly watch such content.

The fact that women that were previously subject to sexual violence were also those who generally sought out violent pornography also has the unpalatable implication that their experience of sexual coercion may have been so arousing to them that they often seek to replicate and relive this experience via the pornography they consume.

It may also imply that women who have these masochistic preferences may associate with men who are more likely to be sexually coercive, or that they may even goad such men into forcing them into sex. There is apparently an online subculture of women who ostensibly detail their genuine attempts at inciting men in committing acts of sexual violence towards them.

Quotes:

From this list, we constructed the variable “violence against women,” including watching any of the following: the woman is tortured, mutilated, raped, gang raped, humiliated (the man/men urinate or defecate on her), killed, or subjected to other violent sex.

Female students exposed to family psychological violence and to sexual violence were significantly more likely to watch pornography, especially violent pornography than those who had not been exposed. No such association was found among male students.

Female victims of sexual violence were 4.24 times more likely to have ever watched pornography (CI [1.41, 12.72]), and 3.27 times more likely to watch currently (CI [1.22, 8.74]).

There was no association, neither for boys nor for girls, between being pressured to watch and a previous experience of sexual violence.

References:

Romito P, Beltramini L. 2011. Watching pornography: gender differences, violence and victimization. An exploratory study in Italy. Violence Against Women, 17(10):1313-26. [Abstract]

Women are drawn more than men to nonfiction stories of rape, murder, and serial killers [ edit | edit source ]

Women have a greater preference for stories of true crime than men. To evaluate the degree of this preference, researchers analyzed gender proportions of reviews on Amazon for different genres including true crime and war. They found 70% of true crime reviewers were female, while 82% of war reviewers were male, despite an overall relatively even distribution of male and female reviewers on the site in general.

The suggested that the primary reasons women might be interested in these books are for "survival tips" to avoid becoming victims themselves. Associations were found which may suggest this is in part a motivation, but these were very weak. Women's evaluations of how much their reading was for "safety" were not very different from men's, and were grossly inadequate at explaining the dramatic gender difference in preference for this material.

Coercive sex or even outright rape is often portrayed in romance novels, which account for 40% of mass paperback sales in the United States (Salmon & Symons 2003). The three best selling books between 2010-2019 belonged to this genre (NPD 2019). These erotic novels are almost exclusively written by women for women, and 54% include rape of the lead character (Thurston 1987). "In a romance novel that includes rape, women identify with the lead female character and vicariously experience her rape." (Critelli & Bivona 2008) In many such novels, there is an aspect of the female "taming" the ruthless and coercive male, baiting him to be nicer by her submission.[citation needed]

On Reddit, one finds women are strongly overrepresented on e.g. /r/truecrime, but strongly underrepresented on /r/police, which means greater interest in law enforcement alone cannot explain women's interest in stories about criminal and dangerous men.

Discussion:

They did not attempt to evaluate to what extent female preference for these types of stories relates to other evidence such as that women are more attracted to sociopathic men, men with criminal histories have more consensual female partners, male serial killers are often inundated with female love letters (hybristophilia), women have a disproportionate preference for pornography featuring violence against women, and that most women admit to harboring "rape fantasies." Women appear to have a simultaneous preference for threat and romance in men, the former for protection, and the latter for provision.

Statistics:

Best selling books, U.S., 2010-2019. Source: The NPD Group / NPD Bookscan, NPD PubTrack Digital, includes U.S. print book and e-book sales. Rank Title Author Publisher Year Unit Sales 1. Fifty Shades of Grey E. L. James Random House 2011 15.2 million 2. Fifty Shades Darker E. L. James Random House 2011 10.4 million 3. Fifty Shades Freed E. L. James Random House 2012 9.3 million 4. The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins Scholastic Books 2008 8.7 million 5. The Help Kathryn Stockett Penguin Group USA 2009 8.7 million 6. The Girl on The Train Paula Hawkins Penguin Group USA 2015 8.2 million 7. Gone Girl Gillian Flynn Random House 2012 8.1 million 8. The Fault in Our Stars John Green, Penguin Group 2012 8 million 9. The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson Random House 2008 7.9 million 10. Divergent Veronica Roth Harpercollins Publishers 2011 6.6 million

Figures:

Gender breakdown of book reviewers by genre. More women than men use Goodreads, explaining their prevalence in male domains, also women may only read pop science, while men engage in more serious readings in philosophy and science ( source ).



Quotes:

More women than men reviewed books in the true crime genre (70% vs. 30%), X²(1, N = 306) = 22.08, p < .001.

More men than women reviewed books in the war genre (82% vs. 18%), X²(1, N = 1,263) = 520.76, p < .001.

95% of the reviews in both the true crime and war categories were positive.

When considering stories with violent content, women are drawn to true crime stories more so than are men.

References:

Vicary AM, Fraley, RC. 2010. Captured by True Crime: Why Are Women Drawn to Tales of Rape, Murder, and Serial Killers? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1(1): 81-86. [Abstract] [FullText]

Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1(1): 81-86. [Abstract] [FullText] NPD. 2019. Nonfiction and screen adaptations led U.S. book sales from 2010 to 2019, according to NPD Bookscan. [News]

[News] Salmon C, Symons D. 2003. Warrior lovers: Erotic fiction, evolution, and female sexuality. Yale University Press. [Worldcat]

Thurston C. 1987. The romance revolution: Erotic novels for women and the quest for a new sexual identity. University of Illinois Press. [Worldcat]

Critelli J, Bivona J. Women’s Erotic Rape Fantasies: An Evaluation of Theory and Research. The Journal of Sex Research, 2008. [Abstract]

The Journal of Sex Research, 2008. [Abstract] Thelwall M. 2019. Reader and author gender and genre in Goodreads. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 51(2), 403-430. [Abstract]

Criminal and antisocial men have more sexual partners and have sex earlier [ edit | edit source ]

A meta-analysis of the correlates of criminal behavior by Ellis & Walsh (2000) found a strong association between criminal behavior and a greater number of reported sexual partners in men. 23 studies demonstrated a link between various forms of anti-social and criminal behavior and greater sex partner count, including: delinquency, violent offenses, various offences, recidivism, "victimful offending", antisocial personality, and conduct disorders. 20 studies found a link between illicit drug use and a greater number of sexual partners. Only one study examined failed to find a significant link between anti-social behavior and a greater lifetime sexual partner count.

The authors also discovered a strong link between criminal/anti-social behavior/drug use and earlier sexual debut in both sexes. 17 studies found a relationship between: delinquency, various offences, "victimful offending", conduct disorders and anti-social personality, plus an earlier age of sexual debut. 13 studies demonstrated a relationship between illicit drug use and an earlier age of sexual debut. Every study examined found relationships between criminal/anti-social behavior and being sexually active at a younger age.

The author also stated that earlier studies had convincingly demonstrated that self-reporting the number of sexual partners via an administered questionnaire had proven to be a reasonably accurate measure of actual partner count, especially for males.

Quotes:

As you can see, the evidence has consistently shown criminals and delinquents reporting more sexual activity, and to have begun such activity at an earlier age, on average than for other persons of their age. The same appears to be true for those diagnosed with conduct disorders and/or psychopathy.

Having numerous sex partners can only be scientifically measured by using questionnaire responses ... To assess the accuracy of these self-reports, a few studies have surveyed the same people two or three times, presenting them with the same question. These studies have revealed that there is a general tendency to underreport the number of partners one has had, especially by females ... Nonetheless, the answers given by most subjects appear to be accurate.

References:

Ellis L, Walsh A. 2000. Criminology: A Global Perspective, 1st Edition. pp 227: Table 8.11. [References]

Antisocial, criminal and violent men have greater sexual access to women [ edit | edit source ]

Research has shown that men with antisocial and criminal tendencies have considerably higher reproductive and sexual success than men who lack this predisposition. In one study, antisocial men only represented 10% of the male cohort, but yet fathered 27% of the babies in that group. (Jaffee et al. 2003)

Another study investigating the links between criminal behavior and reproductive success found criminal men were more likely to have more children with lower commitment, as they were more likely to have multiple children with multiple women. It was concluded that in a contemporary industrialized country, criminal and antisocial behaviors can be considered successful reproductive strategies for men, leading to more female sexual partners and childbirths (Yao et al. 2014).

A study by Barbaro and Shackelford (2016) found evidence that male-perpetrated female-directed violence may be associated with greater sexual access to a female, and that it may in part be due to women responding favorably to male aggression.

Discussion:

This line of research provides solid evidence for Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt hypothesized relation between a violent and feral element in human sexuality and ancient courtship adaptation in which pair formation could only take place if the male is able to physically dominate the female which can be traced back to the sexual behavior of ancient species such as lizards. Such adaptations may serve the function of testing the male.

Quotes:

Despite the fact that fathers who engage in high levels of antisocial behavior make up a small proportion of fathers overall, they are responsible for a disproportionate number of births. For example, Moffitt and colleagues (2002) found that although men who engaged in high levels of antisocial behavior constituted only 10% of a birth cohort, they accounted for 27% of the babies fathered by the time the men were age 26. (Jaffee et al. 2003)

(Jaffee et al. 2003) From an evolutionary viewpoint, criminal behavior may persist despite adverse consequences by providing offenders with fitness benefits as part of a successful alternative mating strategy. Specifically, criminal behavior may have evolved as a reproductive strategy based on low parental investment reflected in low commitment in reproductive relationships.

Convicted criminal offenders had more children than individuals never convicted of a criminal offense. Criminal offenders also had more reproductive partners, were less often married, more likely to get remarried if ever married, and had more often contracted a sexually transmitted disease than non-offenders.

Importantly, the increased reproductive success of criminals was explained by a fertility increase from having children with several different partners. We conclude that criminality appears to be adaptive in a contemporary industrialized country, and that this association can be explained by antisocial behavior being part of an adaptive alternative reproductive strategy. (Yao et al. 2014)

(Yao et al. 2014) Alternatively, female choice may account for the relationship between FDV and in-pair copulation frequency (but see Muller, Thompson, Kahlenberg, & Wrangham, 2011). Cross-culturally, women prefer men who are dominant as partners (Conroy-Beam, Buss, Pham, & Shackelford, 2015), and thus it may be that dominant men or men who express more masculine personality traits are also more aggressive, have more frequent (noncoercive) in-pair copulations, or both. (Barbaro & Shackelford, 2016)

(Barbaro & Shackelford, 2016) Evidence therefore suggests that over evolutionary history men who employed violence judiciously, on average, conferred replicative advantages compared with men who did not judiciously employ violence, in part, to control women’s sexuality. (Barbaro, 2017)

References:

Jaffee SR, Moffitt TE, Caspi A, Taylor A. 2003. Life with (or without) father: the benefits of living with two biological parents depend on the father's antisocial behavior. Child Dev. 74(1): 109-26. [Abstract]

Child Dev. 74(1): 109-26. [Abstract] Yao S, Långström N, Temrin H, Walum H. 2014. Criminal offending as part of an alternative reproductive strategy: investigating evolutionary hypotheses using Swedish total population data. Evolution and Human Behavior. 35(6): 481-488. [Abstract]

Evolution and Human Behavior. 35(6): 481-488. [Abstract] Barbaro N, Shackelford TK. 2016. Female-directed violence as a form of sexual coercion in humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 130(4), 321–327. [Abstract]

Journal of Comparative Psychology, 130(4), 321–327. [Abstract] Barbaro N. 2017. Violence to Control Women’s Sexuality. In: Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, pp.1-6. [Abstract]

Imprisoned serial killers, terrorists and rapists receive thousands of love letters from women [ edit | edit source ]

Hybristophilia is a sexual phenomenon that is defined as 'the erotic obsession with or exclusive sexual attraction with an individual who commits extremely heinous or violent crimes such as rape, murder, serial killings etc.'

According to the research that has been conducted in regards to the matter, it is a phenomenon almost exclusively found in women (Gurian, 2013).

Discussion:

Explanations for the women's attraction to highly violent men range from a nurturing desire to 'fix' these criminals, that they desire the fame/attention that they could receive by association with the criminals and their notorious deeds, but perhaps it is more likely a byproduct of women being wired by their evolutionary past to seek out relationships with dominant and violent 'dark triad' men.

Examples of men who have received numerous love letters and even proposals from women while on trial or imprisoned are listed below.

Data:

Quotes:

Death Row inmates have no shortage of suitors. In fact, the more notorious the murderer, the less he has to work for female companionship, San Quintin [State Prison] spokesman Eric Messick said.

Letters of adoration flow in daily to Death Row inmates from all over the world, some of them 20 handwritten pages long.

Richard Allen Davis, the man who kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaas from her Petaluma home in 1993 and killed her, "probably gets more mail than most," Messick said. Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker" who killed 13 people and has more than a passing interest in Satanism, has women virtually throwing themselves at him despite the fact he is already married.

Messick said "99 percent" of correspondence to the condemned is from women. (There doesn't seem to be a similar clamoring among men for women awaiting death. None of the 15 women on the state's female Death Row in Chowchilla has gotten married in prison.) (Fimrite and Taylor 2005)

References:

Fimrite P, Taylor M. 2005. No shortage of women who dream of snaring a husband on Death Row / Experts ponder why deadliest criminals get so many proposals. SF Gate. [News]

SF Gate. [News] Gurian EA. 2013. Explanations of mixed-sex partnered homicide: A review of sociological and psychological theory. Aggression and Violent Behavior. 18(5): 520-526. [Abstract]

Male gang members have dramatically more female sexual partners [ edit | edit source ]

A study by Palmer and Tilley (1995) for The Journal of Sex Research examined the possible evolutionary motives (i.e access to willing females sexual partners) that prompt young men to join street gangs. They revealed that gang members had significantly more consensual sexual partners than a comparable group of non-gang members. It was found that the leaders of these gangs by far had the highest number of sexual partners, with no male non-gang member from the sample coming even close to their high sexual partner count.

These findings came despite previous evidence that physically unattractive individuals are disproportionately drawn to a life of crime, and physically attractive individuals are usually dissuaded from a life of crime (Mocan and Tekin 2006). This would suggest gang members are not likely to be more physically attractive than average men.

This information is provided solely for evidentiary purposes as regards to the mate selection procedures of female H.Sapiens—it is certainly not encouraged for any man to "thugmaxx" (i.e commit violent crimes) in an attempt to ameliorate their sexual situation.

Quotes:

Gang members reported a significantly greater average number of sex partners during the last 30 days than the non-gang members reported for the same period (M of 1.67 to 1.22, respectively); one-tailed t-test, t = 2.16, df = 118, p < .025. […]

Two gang leaders […] reported 11 and 10 partners, respectively, [within the last 90 days] […]

Many gang members in our study had as many, or more, sex partners in one month than the average male in Laumann et al.'s study had in one year.

In contrast, no non-gang member in the study reported more than five partners within the last 90 days.

We also predict that leaders of gangs, like leaders in many human societies, not only have sexual access to greater numbers of females, but also more exclusive sexual access to these females. (Palmer and Tilley 1995)

References:

Palmer CT, Tilley CF. 1995. Sexual Access to Females as a Motivation For Joining Gangs: An Evolutionary Approach. The Journal of Sex Research, 32(3):213-217. [Abstract] [FullText]

The Journal of Sex Research, 32(3):213-217. [Abstract] [FullText] Mocan N, Tekin E. 2006. Ugly Criminals. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper No. 12019. [FullText]

Childhood bullies experience greater sexual success than non-bullies [ edit | edit source ]

Volk et al. (2015) tested the hypothesis that a behavioral tendency towards bullying others, far from only representing a maladaptive social behavior, could actually benefit the perpetrators in terms of the sexual opportunities that accrue to them.

Two separate samples consisting of adolescents (N = 334) and university students (N = 144), were examined by the researchers. Participants filled out questionnaires relating to their perpetuation of bullying behaviors, whether or not they were sexually active or dating, and at what age the commenced dating and how many partners they had dated. The participant's popularity with other students, and self-perceived attractiveness and likeability, were also reported.

The researchers found generally positive evidence that bullying was an evolutionarily adaptive behavior, and this was mostly independent of the common variance with attractiveness and age, sex, or popularity.

A further study by Provenzano et al., used cross-sectional samples consisting of older adolescents (N = 144;111 women Mean Age 18.32) and 396 younger adolescents (N = 396;230 girls, Mean age 14.62). Participants reported their level of engagement in bullying behaviors and their level of bullying victimization, as well as answering a question measuring their number of sexual partners, since the age of 12.

It was found that a greater likelihood of being the perpetrator of bullying behavior was correlated with a greater sexual partner count. However, due to the nature of the study it was impossible to tell if the mediating factor in this relationship was the bullying itself, or the HEXACO personality traits that are associated with a greater likelihood of engaging in this behavior, specifically the trait 'Honesty-Humility', that was found to being generally lower among bullies. This personality trait has also generally been found to be related to the 'dark triad' traits.

Discussion: Bullying likely makes men more directly attractive to women for a variety of reasons. Despite frequent claims that bullies are primarily motivated by low-self esteem and unstable home environments, exclusive bullying victims generally have lower self-esteem vs. those who are both perpetrators and victims of bullying in boys (Pollastri et al., 2009). Thus, bullying may be an effective tactic that lowers one's sexual rivals' social status and boost one's status, likely explaining (at least partially) why bullies are more attractive to women.

Such effects are likely to be weakened or obscured by school anti-bullying programs, potentially making engaging in overt bullying behaviors more costly in terms of potential reputational damage that this behavior may incur. The effectiveness of bullying as a socio-sexual tactic also seems to vary wildly by differences in the initial social status and physical attractiveness of the perpetrators/victims, with higher-status individuals likely being socially rewarded more for bullying and excluding lower status individuals. Rosen & Underwood (2010) found some indirect support for this assertion, as the researchers found that overtly aggressive behavior was associated with lower peer popularity for facially unattractive boys. Thus one would expect bullying to be a much more effective tactic for further increasing the mating success of high status and physically attractive individuals, and being a bully may hamper the mating success of less attractive individuals.

Bullying is also robustly associated with other personality and interpersonal traits that have been demonstrated in other research to be attractive to women (at least in some mating contexts, or perhaps certain types of women) such as low empathy (Enderson & Olweus, 2001) and some of the 'Dark Triad' traits, most notably psychopathy (Baughman et al., 2012,). Baughman et al. discovered that the dark triad trait most strongly associated with bullying perpetration was psychopathy, with there being a moderate correlation (r= .53) between self-reported tendencies to engage in direct bullying behavior in adulthood and psychopathy scores. Thus bullies are likely more sexually successful as a result of the traits that make them prone to bullying in the first place, as well as their greater mating success being mediated directly through their perpetration of bullying. Research has demonstrated that certain women are implicitly more attracted to men higher in certain aspects of psychopathy, as detailed above in this article.

Peer group exclusion through would also be expected to directly reduce one's sexual opportunities, with this being exacerbated by the fact that those with developmental disabilities or poor physical appearance are those particularly prone to experiencing bullying victimization (Sweeting & West, 2010).

The tendency to bully others (and even one's likelihood to be a victim of bullying) is also substantially heritable (Huhtamäki et al., 2020), with genetic factors accounting for up to 62% percent of the variance in the tendency to be a perpetrator of bullying behaviors. Thus if a man's tendency towards engaging in bullying was effective in increasing his reproductive fitness, as the literature into the subject has generally demonstrated, it is certainly possible that women have evolved to be attracted to this trait. The women that reproduce with such men will likely have increased reproductive fitness if their sons inherit their father's tendency to be a bully (Fisher's Sexy Sons Hypothesis).

The general implication of this research is that bullying, at least partially, represents an innate evolutionary adaption. Since this behavior appears highly effective at getting men things they generally desire immensely (women, resources, peer status) efforts to eliminate bullying completely (e.g., 'zero tolerance' policies for bullying) seem quite futile and overly idealistic. Programs that genuinely seek to reduce incidences of bullying will likely need to acknowledge the role of genetics in causing this behavior to begin with and will need to acknowledge (and attempt to counter) the clear evolutionary and social benefits of bullying in order to have any chance of succeeding.

Quotes:

Taken together, results from the present study offer mixed, but generally positive, support for our hypothesis that bullying is an evolutionarily adaptive behavior .

. The links between bullying and dating/sexual outcomes are (for the most part) not simply a function of common variance with attractiveness and age or sex, although those variables do play a role in dating and sexual behavior . (Volk et al. 2015)

. (Volk et al. 2015) Bullying research and interventions should be increasingly cognizant of the fact that bullying may indeed be, at least in part, due to evolved mental adaptations that predispose some individuals to harm others to obtain personal goals. These goals may go beyond social dominance and extend specifically toward obtaining sexual partners .

. Taken together, Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness may be associated with having more sexual partners by allowing adolescents more willing and able to use bullying as a strategy to facilitate intrasexual competition and intersexual selection, as opposed to being a mechanism leading directly to engagement with more sexual partners. (Provenzano et al. 2017)

References:

Volk AA, Dane AV, Zopito AM, Vaillancourt T. 2015. Adolescent Bullying, Dating, and Mating: Testing an Evolutionary Hypothesis. Evolutionary Psychology. [FullText]

Evolutionary Psychology. [FullText] Provenzano DA, Dane AV, Farrell AH, Marini Z, Volk AA. 2017. Do Bullies Have More Sex? The Role of Personality. Evolutionary Psychological Science. [FullText]

More than half of prison staff sexual misconduct involves female guards/staff [ edit | edit source ]

According to US prison guidelines, "staff sexual misconduct" includes any seemingly consensual act or behavior of a sexual nature directed toward an inmate by staff, including romantic relationships. Such acts include intentional touching of the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks with the intent to abuse, arouse, or gratify sexual desire; completed, attempted, threatened, or requested sexual acts; and occurrences of indecent exposure, invasion of privacy, or staff voyeurism for sexual gratification.

This is differentiated form "nonconsensual sexual acts" and "abusive sexual acts" which are considered in a different manner.

A 2014 US prison audit found that 54% of all incidents of staff sexual misconduct (i.e consensual sexual relationships with prisoners) were perpetrated by females. Of all substantiated incidents involving female staff, 84% appeared to be fully consensual.

Quotes:

54% of incidents of staff sexual misconduct were perpetrated by females.

In state and federal prisons, 67% of inmate victims of staff sexual misconduct or harassment were male, while 58% of staff perpetrators were female.

Among all substantiated incidents between 2009 and 2011, 84% of those perpetrated by female staff, compared to 37% of those perpetrated by male staff, involved a sexual relationship that “appeared to be willing.”

References:

Beck AJ, Rantala RR, Bexroat J. 2014. Sexual Victimization Reported by Adult Correctional Authorities, 2009–11. U.S Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. [FullText]

39% of hospitalized male psychopaths had consensual sex with female mental health staff [ edit | edit source ]

Carl B. Gacono, Ph.D. et al., (1995) published a small study for The Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law comparing "select behavior indices between hospitalized insanity acquittees (N = 18) and hospitalized insanity acquittees who successfully malingered (N = 18)". The study authors called the malingerers 'severe psychopaths', which was evidenced by the fact that all of these malingerers engaged in physical or verbal violence against the staff of the facility, and that a large amount of them were convicted rapists, murderers etc.

They found that these severe psychopaths were so likely to have consensual sexual relations with female staff, that in fact, 39% had such consensual relations with female mental health staff when the researchers evaluated this. Some (the precise figure was not mentioned) even married the female staff members.

Data:

Behavioural infractions committed by control group and malingerers 'severe psychopaths'.

Comparison Subjects Severe Psychopaths Verbally/physically assaultive 17% 100% Specialized treatment plan 0% 35% Sex/marriage with female staff 0% 39% Drug dealing within institution 0% 44% Escaped 11% 17%

Quotes:

The malingerers were significantly more likely to have a history of murder or rape, carry a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder or sexual sadism, and produce greater PCL-R factor 1, factor 2, and total scores than insanity acquittees who did not malinger.

The malingerers were also significantly more likely to be verbally or physically assaultive, require specialized treatment plans to control their aggression, have sexual relations with female staff, 39% had such consensual relations with female mental health staff, deal drugs, and be considered an escape risk within the forensic hospital.

References:

Gacono C, Meloy JR, Sheppard K, Speth E, Roske A. 1995. A Clinical Investigation of Malingering and Psychopathy in Hospitalized Insanity Acquittees. Bull Am Acad Psychiatry Law. 23(3): 387-397. [FullText]

Women desiring marriage and commitment are more attracted to narcissistic men [ edit | edit source ]

Haslam and Montrose (2015) surveyed 146 British females asking them to rate their agreement with a series of statements intended to measure their attraction to narcissism in a potential male partner. The statements were derived from the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) a psychological test designed to measure the level of "sub-clinical narcissism" in an individual. They found that women wishing to get married were more attracted to the narcissistic male personality (mean rank = 77.82) than those not desiring marriage (mean rank = 59.81). Women with a higher number of sexual partners were also significantly more attracted to the narcissistic male personality. These findings were made despite it being previously demonstrated that narcissistic mates are more likely to be unfaithful, and narcissism is associated with a lack of relational commitment (Buss & Shackleford, 1997).

Quotes:

Females that desired marriage were more attracted to the narcissistic personality than their counterparts who did not desire marriage. This finding is problematic from a female perspective as the narcissistic male is primarily short-term mating goal orientated and does not provide a suitable long-term partner.

Regardless of females possessing substantial mating experience and matrimonial desires which could be suggested to render the narcissistic male unsuitable as a partner, the narcissistic male personality is still desired, highlighting the success of this personality construct in facilitating a short-term mating strategy.

References:

Haslam C, Montrose T. 2015. Should have known better: The impact of mating experience and the desire for marriage upon attraction to the narcissistic personality. Personality and Individual Differences. 82: 188-192. [Abstract]

Personality and Individual Differences. 82: 188-192. [Abstract] Buss DM, Shackleford TK. 1997. Susceptibility to Infidelity in the First Year of Marriage. Journal of Research in Personality. 31:2, pp. 193-221. [Abstract]

Female narcissism reduces marital quality for men, but male narcissism does not for women [ edit | edit source ]

Lavner et al. (2016) gathered longitudinal data from a community sample of 146 newlywed couples assessed six times over the first four years of marriage to assess how narcissism in men and women differentially affected marriage quality and outcomes.

They measured partner characteristics of narcissism to determine the degree to which couples were matched on narcissism and related traits. Then they examined how narcissism predicted the trajectory of marital quality over time, testing narcissism's association with initial levels of relationship functioning and changes in relationship functioning.

The authors found that high degrees of female narcissism predicted a decline in marital quality and satisfaction over time. However, male narcissism did not negatively affect marital quality or satisfaction.

Discussion:

This would seem to imply men are greatly bothered by narcissistic wives, but women are not so typically bothered by narcissistic husbands. This conclusion is in keeping with evidence reviewed that women find narcissistic men more attractive and actively seek them as husbands.

Quotes:

Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that wives' total narcissism and entitlement/exploitativeness scores predicted the slope of marital quality over time, including steeper declines in marital satisfaction and steeper increases in marital problems.

Husbands' narcissism scores generally had few effects on their own marital quality or that of their wives.

References:

Lavner JA, Lamkin J, Miller JD, Campbell WK, Karney BR. 2016. Narcissism and newlywed marriage: Partner characteristics and marital trajectories. Personal Disord. 7(2): 169-79. [Abstract]

Men are attracted to "nice" women, but women are not attracted to "nice" men [ edit | edit source ]

Researchers sought to evaluate niceness by defining it as: "a characteristic that may signal to potential partners that one understands, values and supports important aspects of their self-concept and is willing to invest resources in the relationship." In other words, niceness is the degree to which a person understands, values, and supports his partner's identity and values and is willing to put commitment and effort into the relationship. This is also known in psychology as "responsiveness."

The researchers found that men who perceived possible female partners as responsive found them to be "more feminine and more attractive." They also found that when men found women to be responsive, it led to a heightened sexual arousal from the men and greater desire for a relationship.

There was no significant relationship between male responsiveness and women's attraction to the men.

Related to this, a study by Tracy and Beall (2011) found that women were less attracted to smiling happy men, compared to men displaying pride or shame.

Discussion:

The Internet is full of women claiming the reason they "don't give nice guys a chance" is that those "nice guys" are not actually truly "nice". The more scientifically valid explanation for this behavior based on these findings is that a man's niceness does not appear to be sexually valued by women at all or is perhaps even negatively valued.

An interesting addition is that nice men have substantially lower economic success. In Judge et al. (2012), nice men (judged by them being one standard deviation higher in agreeableness), had an 18.3% lower income. For women it's 5.47% lower, but they are more agreeable and tend to occupy positions of lower status to begin with. It pays off being disagreeable, in life as a whole, and doubly so with women because women also prefer men with high income.

Telling men to be nice harms their romantic lives and financial prospects.

Men's attraction to nice women may be explained by men's desire to ensure their paternity making them prefer well-behaved and controllable women, if they should find them.

Quotes:

Responsiveness may signal to a potential partner that one is concerned with her or his welfare, and may therefore increase sexual interest in this person.

Research shows, however, that this proposition holds true for men, but not for women.

Men, but not women, perceived a responsive stranger as more attractive.

Responsiveness increased men’s perception of partner’s femininity.

References:

Birnbaum GE, Ein-Dor T, Reis HT, Segal N. 2014. Why Do Men Prefer Nice Women? Gender Typicality Mediates the Effect of Responsiveness on Perceived Attractiveness in Initial Acquaintanceships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 40(10): 1341-1353. [Abstract]

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 40(10): 1341-1353. [Abstract] Mejia P. 2014. Study Finds That Men Like Nice Women, But Not the Other Way Around. Newsweek. [News]

Newsweek. [News] Judge TA, Livingston BA, and Hurst C. 2012. Do nice guys—and gals—really finish last? The joint effects of sex and agreeableness on income. [Abstract]

[Abstract] Tracy JL, Beall AT. 2011. Happy guys finish last: The impact of emotion expressions on sexual attraction. Emotion, 11(6), 1379. [Abstract]

Vegetarian men are less attractive, likable, and masculine to women than omnivorous men [ edit | edit source ]

Timeo and Suitner (2018) conducted a series of studies that concluded that:

Women perceived vegetarian men as 8% less attractive, compared to omnivorous men.

Women viewed vegetarian men as "less likable".

The greater negative perception of vegetarian men was mediated by women's perception of vegetarian men as "less masculine".

Gender role norms prescribing that men eat meat are actively maintained by both women and men and do in fact guide men’s food choices.

One of the common motivators of vegetarian men in adopting such a diet is connected to altruistic concerns (i.e. regarding animal welfare), but in women's average opinion this is sexually unattractive behavior, largely due to perceptions of vegetarian men as being less masculine. Women's preference for omnivorous men might be partly due to the easier digestibility and nutritiousness of meat and the fact that men conducted the vast majority of hunting throughout human evolutionary history, as women are substantially less adapted towards hunting than men.

References:

Timeo S, Suitner C. 2018. Eating meat makes you sexy: Conformity to dietary gender norms and attractiveness. Psychology of Men & Masculinity. 19(3): 418-429. [Abstract]

Rapists are far more sexually active than other men [ edit | edit source ]

David Lisak (2002) wrote in a research paper about undetected rapists (rapists who were never arrested or even reported): "'Undetected rapists' have consistently been shown to more sexually active than other men. Apart from their sexually aggressive behavior, they engage in consensual and coercive sex far more often than is typical for men of their age group. Their sexual activity tends to be an important component of their identities. Thus, rather than being a product of a greater sex drive, their increased sexual activity appears to be driven by their view that if they are not very active then they are neither 'successful' nor adequate as men."

In the book Rape Investigation Handbook by John O. Savino and Brent E. Turvey, they showed studies showing how many rapists attract women and are sexually active with many women. "Groth (1979, p. 5) dispels the myth of the predominance of 'loner' and socially outcast rapists by explaining that 'one third of the offenders that we worked with were married and sexually active with their wives at the time of their assaults. . . . Of those offenders who were not married (that is, single, seperated, or divorced), the majority were actively involved in a variety of consenting sexual relationships with other persons at the time of their offenses." Also, "furthermore, Groth and Hobson (1983, p. 161), who studied 1,000 offenders over a 16-year period, found the following: 'All of the offenders we have seen were sexually active males involved in consensual relationships at the time of their offense. No one raped because he had no other outlet for his sexual needs."

A majority of rapists are serial rapists, meaning they raped multiple people. Serial acquaintance rapists are often very charismatic. The notion that rapists are easily identifiable is a myth. College men in fraternities are three times more likely to rape or sexually assault women and college athletes also are more likely to rape or sexually assault women. In DEAR STUDENT-ATHLETE: A closer look at how college athletics departments are addressing sexual misconduct by Nia Vogel, Vogel writes "The group of students at the greatest risk of being responsible for sexual assault against a peer is male student athletes. Statistics reveal that although male college athletes represent less than 4% of colleges’ student body, that group commits about 20% of reported sexual assaults."

Discussion:

While their high amount of consensual sex with women has a lot to do with them having a lot of sex to "successful" or "adequate" as men, the fact that they succeeded in being sexually active way more than most men shows that they are very sexually successful compared to other men.

References:

Lisak, David (March 2002). "The Undetected Rapist" (PDF). [FullText]

Savino, John O.; Turvey, Brent E. (2005). Rape Investigation Handbook. Academic Press. ISBN 9780120728329.

Loh, Catherine; Gidycz, Christine; Lobo, Tracy; Luthra, Rohini (2005). "A Prospective Analysis of Sexual Assault Perpetration: Risk Factors Related to Perpetrator Characteristics" (PDF). Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 20 (10): 1325–1348. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.208.7187. doi:10.1177/0886260505278528. PMID 16162492. [FullText]

Foubert, John; Newberry, Johnathan; Tatum, Jerry (2007). "Behavior differences seven months later: Effects of a rape prevention program on first-year men who join fraternities". NASPA Journal. 44 (4): 728–749. doi:10.2202/1949-6605.1866. [FullText]

Vogel, Nia, "DEAR STUDENT-ATHLETE: A closer look at how college athletics departments are addressing sexual misconduct". Senior eses, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 2018. Trinity College Digital Repository [FullText]

69% of high functioning autistic adolescents want relationships, but almost none succeed [ edit | edit source ]

The parents of N = 190 adolescents with high and low functioning autism completed a survey to evaluate the adolescents' perspectives around sexuality.

The adolescents upon whom parents were reporting were predominantly Caucasian (89.3%) males (86.8%) aged 12–18 with a median age of 14 years (M = 14.51, SD = 1.96).

Findings were:

69.2% of adolescents with high functioning autism expressed the desire for a dating relationship.

73.1% with high functioning autism expressed attraction to someone of the opposite sex, and 10.0% to the same sex.

However, only 7.7% of this high functioning autistic cohort reported having had a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, and 1.5% with someone of the same sex.

Only 1.5% of the group had sex.

For comparison, around 35% of overall teens (ages 13-17) have some experience with romantic relationships (HSS.gov). Autistic adolescents showed a typical amount of desire for sexual relationships, but a disproportionately low capacity to achieve them. A limitation in deriving figures about the teenager sex lives from parent reports is that teenagers do not disclose all of their activities. However, a survey showed, among teens and young adults 15-21 who reported having vaginal sex, 91% of their parents were aware of this (source).

References:

Holmes LG, Himle MB. 2014. Brief Report: Parent-Child Sexuality Communication and Autism Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 44(11): 2964–2970. [Abstract] [FullText]

44.6% of high functioning adult autistic men remain virgins, despite high sex/relationship drive [ edit | edit source ]

A group of high functioning autistic men and women was evaluated and compared with healthy controls to assess their sexual and relationship desires and success/failure to achieve those desires.

44.6% of autistic men were found to still virgins among a sample, with the average age being 35.7 years.

Autistic men masturbated more and have a greater desire for a relationship than normal neurotypical (NT) men in the sample. However, only 16% of autistic men were in a relationship, while 82% of NT men were in a relationship. NT men were 5x more likely to be in a relationship than their autistic counterparts.

Autism did not so significantly reduce women's ability to find relationships with men, as 46% of women were able to have relationships, while only 16% of men were.

Discussion: The lower sexual success of autistic men as compared to women may be since autism reduces an individual's capacity for emotional interaction, but normal men crave emotional interaction less than normal women, so this will disproportionately impair an autistic man's attempts to find a relationship vs. an autistic woman's. It could also be that autistic men are more likely to be shunned then autistic women, either because the behavioral traits of autism are less apparent in females compared to males inherently, or autistic women are more effective at 'masking' their autism and behaving in a Neurotypical fashion compared to autistic males.

These women are also likely seen as having an inherent social value due to their innate reproductive resources that autistic men do not have. Due to women's tendency towards a passive courtship style, it would also be significantly easier for an autistic woman to enter into a relationship as men are expected to initiate courtship (at least formally) and actively pursue the woman.

Men are also generally much less sexually selective than women across a variety of traits, so one would expect neurotypicality and emotional expressiveness to be an aspect of this. Autistic women may also be perceived as being easier to control and even exploit by potential male partners, with Sedgwick et al. (2019) finding that autistic women reported greater experiences of exploitation in their sexual relationships than the Neurotypical (NT) women examined by the researchers. Interestingly enough, in this study, autistic women were equally as likely to be married, in a relationship, or have children compared to the Neurotypical women examined.

Autistic men also exhibited a greater number of paraphilias, which are considered "socially taboo." These paraphilias which appear to be part of their disease state would likely further compound their difficulties in entering and maintaining romantic relationships.

Quotes:

Male ASD participants reported more frequent masturbation than male healthy controls (HCs) (P < 0.01).

ASD men reported a greater sexual desire for sexual intercourse than their HC counterparts (P < 0.05, Table III).

Of the individuals with ASD, significantly more women (N = 18; 46.2%) than men (N = 9; 16.1%) were currently in a relationship

References:

Schöttle D, Briken P, Tüscher O, Turner D. 2017. Sexuality in autism: hypersexual and paraphilic behavior in women and men with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 19(4): 381–393. [FullText]

Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 19(4): 381–393. [FullText] Sedgwick F, Crane L, Hill V, Pellicano E. 2019. Friends and Lovers: The Relationships of Autistic and Neurotypical Women. Autism in Adulthood. 1:2. [FullText]

Autists are judged as awkward, less physically attractive and less approachable within seconds [ edit | edit source ]

Sasson et al. (2017) conducted a series of studies with a similar methodology consisting of groups of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and NT (Neurotypical) peers in various modes of social interaction consisting of 'thin slices.' The study discussed here consisted of forty adults (20 ASD; 20 NT;17 males each group) participants.

The participants were comparable in IQ as measured by the WASI test (Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence) and age. The participants were made to record a 60-second mock audition for a fictional reality television program, which was edited by the researchers into five presentation modalities: (1) audio-only (2) visual-only (3) audio-visual (4) static image and (5) transcript of speech content. These recordings allowed the researchers to examine which elements of the participant's presentation styles contributed to the first impressions of observers.

The participants were then rated by a group of volunteers (who were not informed of the clinical diagnoses of the ASD participants). This evaluation took place in the form of an online survey. Each stimulus was rated one at a time on ten items using a four-point scale (0–3), on several socially desirable traits that are accurately assessed at first acquaintance: attractiveness, awkwardness, intelligence, likeability, trustworthiness, and dominance.

The researchers discovered that ASD participants were perceived more negatively on a number of the socially desirable traits examined, including attractiveness, likability, and dominance.

A later study (Alkhaldi, Sheppard & Mitchell, 2019) partially replicated the findings of the previous study. This study helped to elucidate further the possible casual factors behind this negative evaluation of ASD individuals. The pre-recorded video responses of autistic and NT participants (N = 40, 20 ASD, and 20 NT) to various stimuli of the subjects interacting with researchers (compliment, joke, story, waiting) were recorded. These video clips were evaluated by 31 typically developing perceivers (10 males and 21 females, and the researchers found that ASD individuals were perceived less favorably on several dimensions. The researchers also performed a second study, which replicated the results of the prior study. The participants were informed which scenario each of the participants in the study was experiencing. Which was to help the participants conceptualize the behavior they were observing.

Perceiver ratings were utilized by the researchers to calculate a "readability" score (how easy it was to perceive the participant's emotional and affective states). The researchers found that throughout two studies, the readability score correlated moderately to strongly (r = 0.58 for the first study and 0.63 for the second) with the negative or positive evaluations of the target's characteristics. Thus the negative perceptions of autistic individuals are possibly mediated by the observers' difficulty in reading their emotions or intentions. The researchers stated this could either be because this unreadability was associated with perceptions of lower trustworthiness. It could also simply be this unreadability is associated with behaving in a manner that is perceived as eccentric or "out of the ordinary," resulting in the greater negative perceptions of them.

Trevisan et al. (2018) conducted a meta-analysis on facial expressiveness in autists. They found autists have little difficulties producing simple expressions such as smiles, frowns, and expressions of disgusts. However, autists tend to have inappropriate expressions at times and do not copy other's facial expressions subconsciously, giving the impression of being absent-minded and of low (affective) empathy. They also have more difficulties in spontaneously producing facial expressions and fewer difficulties when they are prompted to produce a particular facial expression. High IQ autists may be able to compensate for their lack of facial expressiveness to some extent, as emotional recognition is related to general intelligence, especially with more experience in social interactions and higher age.

Discussion:

This finding also brings into question the often-touted claim that autists fail socially primarily because they cannot read social cues and accidentally offend people. Autists do not score lower in some components of empathy, in some even higher than neurotypicals (Song 2019).

Emotional expressiveness may have evolved due to the necessity for social organization in groups of humans. Proper expression of emotion is crucial for navigating and ascending social hierarchies; hence there is a selection pressure for sexual preferences to avoid non-neurotypical individuals. Such non-neurotypicals may also tend to be ineffective coalition partners. Further, atypical behavior may have served as an indicator of neurodegenerative infectious diseases in the past, often enough that humans evolved a natural aversion.

An alternative or additional explanation may be sexual selection: Geoffrey Miller's mating mind hypothesis of human intelligence suggests that higher cognition and much of human behavior may have evolved as "cognitive ornament" though positive-feedback processes in sexual selection. Such runaway selection predicts not only an exaggerated ornament but also a highly narrowed and exaggerated preference for such ornament. This evolutionary selection pressure may suggest the struggles high-functioning autists face may, in part, be rooted in social exclusion. This exclusion seems partially based on sexually selected preferences for highly specific modes of facial and emotional expressiveness . People strongly judge based on subtle cues of physical appearance despite them being mostly unrelated to health and ability. This superficiality in judgment may be evidence of a few millimeters of emotional expressiveness and charisma in analogy to a few millimeters of bone that contribute to social and sexual exclusion. The natural aversion to subtle differences in emotional expressiveness may also be a driver of racism as each race may more attuned to particular cognitive ornament specific to their race. For example, Albert Einstein perceived the Northeast Asians as obtuse in one of his travel diaries.

Quotes:

Our findings show that negative first impressions of adults with ASD occurred only when audio and/or visual information was present, and not when the transcript of their speech content was evaluated. This discrepancy suggests that social presentation style rather than the substantive content of social speech drove negative impression formation of individuals with ASD.

Supporting this conclusion, a static image was sufficient for generating negative first impressions of those with ASD and including additional information, such as body movement or voice, did not worsen them further.

However, negative impressions did not occur for all evaluated traits, with the two groups not differing on ratings of perceived intelligence or trustworthiness.

In turn, this may limit opportunities in ASD for developing social connections and friendships, as well as the intergroup contact necessary for mitigating negative biases when present.

Based on evidence in the literature and the data presented here, we propose that negative first impressions of ASD are not founded on any one feature of expression, but rather represent an effect of subtle physical, dynamic, and auditory cues of presentation that can also include additional features, such as clothing choices, grooming habits, gaze patterns, or body posture.

Target readability correlated with ratings of target favorability (r = .58 and r = .63), independent of target diagnosis. Perceivers might rate targets unfavorably because they experience difficulty reading them, though other interpretations of the correlation are also possible. (Alkhaldi et al. 2019)

(Alkhaldi et al. 2019) If being unreadable is associated with being rated socially unfavorable, as suggested by our findings, it could, in turn, have very negative consequences for the development of autistic individuals. This follows if being perceived unfavorably is a barrier to inclusion in the social world, where autistic people, who are in the population minority, instead are condemned to isolation. (Alkhaldi et al. 2019)

References:

Sasson NJ. Faso DJ, Nugent J, Lovell S, Kennedy DP, Grossman RB. 2019. Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with Autism based on Thin Slice Judgments. Scientific Reports. 7: 40700. [FullText]

Scientific Reports. 7: 40700. [FullText] Alkhaldi RS, Sheppard E, Mitchell PJ. 2019. Is There a Link Between Autistic People Being Perceived Unfavorably and Having a Mind That Is Difficult to Read? Autism Dev Disord: pp 1-10. [FullText]

Autism Dev Disord: pp 1-10. [FullText] Trevisan DA, Hoskyn M, Birmingham E. 2018. Facial Expression Production in Autism: A Meta‐Analysis. Autism Research, 11(12), 1586-1601. [Abstract]

Autism Research, 11(12), 1586-1601. [Abstract] Song Y, Nie T, Shi W, Zhao X, Yang Y. 2019. Empathy Impairment in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Conditions From a Multidimensional Perspective: A Meta-Analysis. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1902. [FullText]

Autistic men have 10 times as many suicidal thoughts as normal men [ edit | edit source ]

Autism is a mental health condition that disproportionately affects men and often results in the sufferers of the conditions of social isolation. Numerous studies show the harms of autism are deep and painful to those who must bear them. Autistic individuals are subjected to at least 4-5x as much bullying as normal children. Autistic children report 28x more suicidal ideation or attempt compared to normal children. Autistic adults report nearly ten times as many suicidal thoughts. Overall, people with autism are 7.53 times more likely to die by suicide, those with high-functioning autism having a greater risk of committing suicide than the low functioning, being 9.36 times more likely to commit suicide.

A clinical cohort study of adults recently diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (N = 374, 256 men, 116 women) in 2014 found a much greater prevalence of suicidal ideation and attempts/plans for suicide among adults with Asperger's as compared to the general population. Specifically, adults with Asperger's syndrome are much more likely to report lifetime experience of suicidal ideation than were individuals from a general UK population sample (odds ratio 9.6), and 35% of respondents reported having planned their suicide.

Discussion:

Due to the social deficits of those with this condition, bullying and persecution they often suffer, and lack of human connection often concomitant with this illness, it could be reasonably argued that autists are among the most marginalized groups in society, particularly autistic males, occupying the lowest social status. Based on above data previously reviewed, a significant percent of male autists will die, never having experienced anything close to resembling a loving romantic relationship, or indeed having experienced sexual intercourse at all.

Quotes:

"About 46% of autistic children in middle and high school told their parents they were victimized at school within the previous year, compared with just over 10% of children in the general population." (Szalavitz 2012)

"Percent of children with autism (1-16-year-olds) for whom suicide ideation or attempts was rated as sometimes to very often a problem by mothers (14%) was 28 times greater than that for typical children." (Dickerson et al. 2013)

"Compared with the general population, adults with Asperger's syndrome were nearly ten times more likely to report suicidal thoughts. They were also significantly more likely to have these thoughts than people with one, two, or more medical illnesses, or people with a psychotic illness." (Collingwood 2018)

"In contrast, the high-functioning ASD group had a significantly more elevated suicide risk than the low-functioning ASD group, whereas, again, both groups had an increased risk compared with controls. The time period between registered ASD diagnosis and suicide was on average 2.86 years (SD = 2.41) in the low-functioning ASD group and 2.53 years (SD = 2.65) in the high-functioning ASD group." (Hirvikowski et al. 2016)

"Suicide was the only specific cause of death showing a higher risk in high-functioning ASD compared with low-functioning ASD." (Hivikowski et al. 2016)

References:

Dickerson Mayes S, Gorman AA, Hillwig-Garcia J, Syed E. 2013. "Suicide ideation and attempts in children with autism." Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. 7(1): 109-119. [Abstract]

Hirvikowski T, Mittendorfer-Rutz E, Boman M, Larsson H. 2016. "Premature mortality in autism spectrum disorder." The British Journal of Psychiatry. 208(3): 232-238. [Abstract]

Szalavitz M. 2012. "Why Autistic Kids Make Easy Targets for School Bullies." Time Magazine. [News]

Collingwood J. 2018. "Suicidal Thoughts 10 Times More Likely in Adults With Asperger's." PsychCentral. [News]

Cassidy S, Bradley P, Robinson J, Allison C, McHugh M, Baron-Cohen S. 2014. "Suicidal ideation and suicide plans or attempts in adults with Asperger's syndrome attending a specialist diagnostic clinic: a clinical cohort study." Lancet Psychiatry 1:142-147. [FullText]

High IQ men are more likely to remain virgins longer [ edit | edit source ]

Studies assessing the relation of IQ to mating success in America have found that both adolescent men and women have higher rates of virginity when they have high IQ.

For instance, a study conducted by Halpern et al. (2000) that used a total sample of N = 11,696 adolescents from two longitudinal surveys of adolescent health and sexual behavior, measured the IQs of participants using a simple and equivalent measure of IQ—The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT–R)—which has a correlation of .64 with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, indicating that the test is a good measure of "g," i.e general intelligence.

Combining this measure with reports of sexual activity, sexual maturation, and mother's level of education, a statistical analysis of the data revealed that the most sexually successful individuals seem to be those with an IQ of 70-110. This IQ range consists of the borderline mentally impaired at the lower end (70, an IQ below this threshold is generally considered to constitute an intellectual disability) to somewhat above average (110) at the higher end.

The peak was at the 75-90 IQ range for males, with these males the least likely to be virgins as adolescents.

At the low end of the spectrum, an interesting trend emerges, as we see that low IQs affect male and female sexual activity differently. 46.7% of low IQ men were sexually active, while only 18.4% of low IQ women were. Thus low IQ men were 2.5x as likely as low IQ women to be sexually successful.

Discussion:

This study would suggest that high IQ impairs both men and women from sexual success, but low IQ does not as substantially impair men's sexual success as it would for a woman.

Quotes:

"63.3% of adolescent men and 81.6% of women with IQ scores below average have never had sex and most have had fewer experiences of romantic attraction."

"An adolescent with an IQ score of 100 was 1.5 to 5 times more likely to have had intercourse than an adolescent with an above-average score of about 120 to 130."

"Controlling for age, physical maturity, and mother's education, a significant curvilinear relationship between intelligence and coital status was demonstrated;adolescents at the upper and lower ends of the intelligence distribution were less likely to have sex. Higher intelligence was also associated with postponement of the initiation of the full range of partnered sexual activities."

References:

Hapern CT, Joyner K, Udry JR, Suchindran C. 2000. Smart teens don't have sex (or kiss much either). J Adolesc Health. 26(3): 213-25. [Abstract]

J Adolesc Health. 26(3): 213-25. [Abstract] Agencies. 2007. Studies show IQ link to virginity. The Times of India. [News]

Teenage boys with ADHD have double the amount of sexual partners vs. 'normal' teens [ edit | edit source ]

Østergaard et al. (2017) conducted a nationwide cohort study using data from Danish government registers. Examining individuals (N = 2,698,052) born in Denmark between 1960-2001, it was found that individuals with ADHD were significantly (2.3 for males and 3.62 for females at the ages of 12-16) more likely to become parents in their teens. These numbers were also similar for older teenagers aged 17-19.

This greater reproductive success is possibly partly because teenagers with ADHD have been found to have a larger number of sexual partners vs typically developing (TD) controls. Rokeach & Weiner (2014), administering questionnaires on sexual behavior to 58 participants (30 ADHD, 28 TD), found that irrespective of gender, individuals with ADHD reported nearly double the number of lifetime sexual partners as compared to TD participants. Boys with ADHD also reported a two year earlier age of sexual debut as compared to TD boys, with the age of sexual debut between ADHD and TD girls not being significantly different.

A possible explanation for the ADHD boys being more sexually successful than TD males is due to the overlapping behavioral elements of ADHD and Psychopathy. Bodalski (2017) reviewed research demonstrating a link between ADHD and psychopathic affect and also similar levels of impulsive behavior while noting that the literature elucidating the possible relationship between the two was scarce.

Quotes:

Compared to individuals without ADHD, those with ADHD were significantly more likely to become parents at age 12-15 (IRR for females: 3.62 [95%CI 2.14-6.13] and for males: 2.30 [95%CI 1.27-4.17]) and at age 16-19 (IRR for females: 1.94 [95%CI 1.62-2.33] and for males: 2.27 [95%CI 1.90-2.70]). (Østergaard et al., 2017)

(Østergaard et al., 2017) Adolescents with ADHD reported having more romantic partners than their typically developing (TD) peers. Females with ADHD were found to have shorter romantic relationships than TD adolescents while males with ADHD reported their age of first intercourse to be nearly 2 years sooner than TD peers. Irrespective of gender, adolescents with ADHD had nearly double the number of lifetime sexual partners. (Rokeach & Weiner, 2014)

(Rokeach & Weiner, 2014) Psychopathy and ADHD both have impulsive elements that may explain overlap of the two. A 2010 study indicated that children with ADHD inattentive type and combined type were rated by teachers as having elevated levels of psychopathic and callous-unemotional traits as well as lower educational performance (DeLisi et al., 2010). In 2013, DeLisi found that children with both ADHD and conduct disorder scored higher than their peers on psychopathic personality features and also noted that thrill-seeking and impulsiveness showed to be the strongest classification variables for delinquency and violent delinquency at the 90th percentiles. (Bodalski, 2017)

(Bodalski, 2017)

References:

Rokeach A, Weiner J. 2014. The Romantic Relationships of Adolescents With ADHD. J Atten Disord, 22(1):35-35. [FullText]

J Atten Disord, 22(1):35-35. [FullText] Østergaard SD, Dalsgaard S, Faraone SV, Munk-Olsen T, Laursen TM. 2017. Teenage Parenthood and Birth Rates for Individuals With and Without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Nationwide Cohort Study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 56(1):573-584.e3 [Abstract]

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 56(1):573-584.e3 [Abstract] Bodalski EA. 2017. ADHD and the Dark Side of Leadership. Honor Theses. 987. [Abstract]

Cluster-B personality disorders lead to 3.5x as many sexual partners and more offspring [ edit | edit source ]

Guitiérrez et al. (2013) conducted a study to determine if the various personality disorder clusters—Type A (Schizoid, Odd), Type B (Narcissistic, Anti-social) and Type C (Avoidant, OCD)—were solely detrimental in terms of life outcomes for the individuals with these personality disorders (PDs), or if they instead presented their sufferers with various potentially adaptive benefits, such as more plentiful sexual and social opportunities.

A sample of psychiatric outpatients (N = 738, 53% female, mean age 34.1 yrs, SD 10.9) were presented with a questionnaire designed to measure the presence and intensity of the ten personality disorders. A further questionnaire designed to broadly measure various life outcomes such as number of sexual partners, employment, income, and health was also administered.

A multiple linear regression performed by the researchers on the data was used by the authors to estimate the contribution of the PD scores to various life outcomes.

While finding that in general, PDs were resulting in more negative life outcomes broadly, there were some evolutionary adaptive benefits that seemed to accrue to bearers of these disorders.

Namely, those individuals high in type-B personality cluster traits (Narcissism, Anti-Social, Borderline, Histrionic) of both sexes have 3.5x as many sexual partners as low B subjects, with five times as many short-term mates and twice as many long term mates. The researchers also found that those higher in cluster B had 39% more children than those lower in cluster B traits.

Discussion:

It can be surmised that these personality traits, with all their concomitant adverse outcomes, both for the bearers of these disorders and their potential victims, are most likely being significantly sexually selected for in various modern societies.

Quotes:

PDs even brought some fitness advantages: Whereas reduced fertility in other mental disorders had been mainly attributed to lower marriage rates ... our high-PD subjects had 32% more mates.

The strength of these relationships should not be underestimated: Explained variance lies within the range of 1-5.7% usually found in phenotypic selection studies, in both humans and nonhumans.

Further supporting a sexual selection scenario, our high-B subjects out-reproduced low-B by 39%.

Likewise, high status, a strong priority for high-C subjects, has often been related in post-industrial societies to quality- rather then quantity-based mating and reproduction.

In the literature however, Cluster A disorders are not reported to be completely detrimental. For example, A subjects have been found to spend more time in romantic relationships and to have more frequent or earlier parenthood. Likewise, some components of schizotypy seem to increase mating success ... more data on A traits are clearly needed.

References:

Gutiérrez F, Gárriz M, Peri JM, Ferraz L, Sol D, Navarro JB, Barbadilla A, Valdés M. 2013. Fitness costs and benefits of personality disorder traits. Evolution and Human Behavior. 34(1): 41-48. [Abstract]

Mental disorders significantly reduce men's fertility, substantially more than they do for women [ edit | edit source ]

A study in 2013 examining a total of 2.3 million individuals born in Sweden in 1950-1970, using government health care records, found evidence for substantially lower fertility among sufferers of various mental illnesses. The fertility of the mentally ill was computed by measuring the fertility ratio (e.g., a FR of .5 would mean that the diseased group had on average half of the children of the general non-affected population, a FR of 2 would mean double the offspring on average). This ratio reflected the mean number of children that individuals with various mental disorders had, as compared to control individuals of the same age and sex, also accounting for variables such as family size, affected status and parental status. The youngest individuals involved were 40 years old, at the time the researchers recorded their data, thus had likely mostly completed their reproductive careers.

The researchers found evidence of substantially strong selection pressure against schizophrenia (male FR .23 vs. female FR .47), autism (male FR .25 vs. female FR .48), and anorexia nervosa (male FR .54 vs. female FR .81), but not bi-polar disorder. Depression was weakly negatively associated with fertility for men (FR .93) and not at all for women. Substance abuse disorders were also negatively associated with fertility for men, with a weaker relationship with fertility and the condition being discovered for women (male FR .78 vs. female FR .92). It was also found that the selection pressure against these disorders was found to be consistently higher among men who suffered from them, compared to the women who suffered from these conditions. This stricter selection pressure on mentally ill men follows Bateman's principle, which suggests that males of most animal species have higher reproductive variance than females.

The researchers also found evi