Personality isn't that important. Assertiveness helps of course.
Confidence is gained by continual positive approvals froms society.
Let's look at how important personality really is when looking at studies:
Women are attracted to the Dark Triad - narcissism, manipulativeness, & psychopathy
The
dark triad is defined as:
Narcissism,
Manipulativeness, &
Psychopathy. The "Dirty Dozen" is a scoring tool for quickly quantifying the Dark Triad:
- 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.
Women were presented with male characters of varying degrees of Dark Triad personality. Physicality was held constant. Men with Dark Triad traits were dramatically more attractive to women compared to control characters who lacked these traits (with 99.9% statistical certainty). Furthermore, the attractiveness of these Dark Traits was not explained by other characteristics like extroversion.
Thus it seems apparent that while personality does matter to women, it does not matter in the ways they claim. Contrary to popular claims that women want a "nice, caring guy," in actual fact, they are most sexually attracted and aroused by narcissistic, manipulative, and psychopathic men.
This likely has a basis in evolutionary biology, as Dark Triad traits may have helped provide a competitive edge to men in difficult times, for example, by allowing a man to kill others for resources. Another possible explanation is that
violent, callous or narcissistic behavior is an
Honest Signal of exceptionally good
erotic capital (i.e good looks) high social status or financial capital, as such a person who possesses these traits can 'get away' with behaving in such a manner.
Data:
Condition Attractiveness
Mean SD
High DT 4.44 1.17
Low DT 3.34 1.17
Quotes:
- To explore the attractiveness of the DT personality to the other sex, 128 women rated created (male) characters designed to capture high DT facets of personality or a control personality.
- Physicality was held constant.
- Women rated the high DT character as significantly more attractive.
- Psychopathic traits (lack of morality; interpersonal hostility) are beneficial to a short-term strategy and are correlated with unrestricted pattern of sexual behaviour.
- The results of our study demonstrate that the Dark Triad male personality is attractive to women and this effect is not mediated by these men’s greater perceived Extraversion or Neuroticism.
References:
Male serial killers, terrorists, and rapists receive thousands of love letters from women in prison
Hybristophilia is a sexual phenomenon that is definded 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 regarding the matter, it is a phenomenon almost completely found in women (see Gurian, 2013.)
Explanations for the women's attraction to these highly violent men range from a nurturing desire to 'fix' these criminals, or a desire for fame by association with them and their notorious crimes, but perhaps it is more likely a byproduct of women being wired by their evolutionary past to seek out relationships with dominant and psychopathic 'dark triad' men.
Examples of men who have received numerous love letters and even proposals from women while on trial or imprisoned include:
- Josef Fritzl - Imprisoned his own daughter in a cellar for 24 years, raping and torturing her, fathering 7 children through her, and murdering one of these offspring.
- Anders Breivik - Murdered 77 people in terrorist attacks, with the majority of his victims being young teenagers at summer camp.
- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev - Detonated bombs killing 4 people and injuring 282 more in terrorist attacks.
- Ted Bundy - Kidnapped, raped, and murdered at least 30 young women and girls, sometimes raping even their corpses.
- Richard Ramirez - Raped and tortured 25 people and murdered 13 in a spree of home invasions, one of his victims being a 9-year old girl who he beat, raped and then murdered, married one of his many suitors.
- Chris Watts - Strangled his pregnant wife, then smothered his three and four year old daughters before dumping their bodies.
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.)
References:
39% of hospitalized male psychopaths had consensual sex with female mental health staff
Carl B. Gacono, PhD
et al. (1995) published a small study for the 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'.
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 this was properly evaluated.
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:
Men who exhibit antisocial behaviors reproduce more successfully
A study conducted in the United Kingdom on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development by Jaffee
et al. (2003) using 'data from an epidemiological sample of 1,116 5-year-old twin pairs and their parents', remarked the following: "Second, 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".
References:
Women desiring marriage and commitment are more attracted to narcissistic men
Haslam & Montrose (2015) conducted a survey of 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 based on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) a psychological test designed to measure the level of "sub-clinical narcissism" in an individual. The researchers found:
- 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 significantly more attracted to the narcissistic male personality.
- All of this is despite it being previously demonstrated that narcissistic mates are more likely to be unfaithful and narcissism is associated with a lack of relational commitment.
References:
Female narcissism reduces marital quality for men, but male narcissism does not for women
Lavner et al (2016) gathered longitudinal data from a community sample of 146 newlywed couples assessed 6 times over the first 4 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.
It was 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.
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:
Men are attracted to "nice" women, but women are not attracted to "nice" men
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.
On the other hand,
when women perceived their male partner to be more responsive, they were less attracted to the man.
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.
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:
