Women prefer dark, brooding men: Study

Women are drawn to men with the dark, brooding looks that suggest they are mad, bad or dangerous to know, according to new study released today.

Psychologists from the University of Liverpool, who worked with colleagues in Poland and Finland, found that it is not the love of danger that attracts women to "Wuthering Heights" Heathcliff-like characters, as previously believed, but a primitive desire to find a mate who appears mentally strong, confident and physically attractive in order to have healthier children.

Such men have facial features that display the "Dark Triad" of personality traits Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy said research for the journal 'Evolution and Human Behaviour'.

A total of 2,370 adult female volunteers were shown a selection of computer simulated men's faces in sets of two with one face with more or less of the Dark Triad features than the other. Women were asked which of the two they were
most attracted to.

Some were attracted to men with strong features associated with psychopathy or Machiavellian traits or narcissists while others were not. It found those who were strongly attracted to narcissistic men were likely to have more children than average, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.

But those who went for Machiavellian men had no more or less than average and if they fancied psychopaths they had less. "We examined whether preferences for the Dark Triad personality traits (ie, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) in men's faces were related to reproductive
success in contemporary women," the researchers said.

Out of the three Dark Triad features, narcissism is most clearly associated with social success and physical and psychological health benefits in men," they said. "These findings suggest that in modern society, women's preference for some of the Dark Triad traits in men may be related to their reproductive success," they added.