Do psychopathic birds of a feather flock together? Psychopathic personality traits and romantic preferences

The goal of the present studies was to investigate whether people are especially attracted to psychopathic traits, and whether there are individual differences in such attraction.

Female undergraduates (N = 270; M_age  = 19; 57% White, 20% Asian, 8% Black) and female and male community members (N = 426; M_age  = 37; 56% female; 81% Caucasian, 10% African American, 4% Asian) reported on their own personality and constructed their ideal mate for a dating, short-term, and long-term relationship from a list of 70 characteristics drawn from well-validated criteria for psychopathic personality and diagnostic criteria for DSM-5 personality disorders (PDs).

Across both studies, absolute romantic preferences for psychopathic traits collapsed across time point were low on average, but higher than those for most all other PDs. In addition, they were higher for Factor 1 (i.e., interpersonal/affective) as opposed to Factor 2 (i.e., impulsive, antisocial) psychopathy traits. Participants with marked PD features, including Factor 2 psychopathy traits, were more inclined than others to endorse a preference for psychopathic males.

Relative attraction to psychopathic males and observed homophily may be avenues through which psychopathic traits persist in the population across time.