New Study Investigates Dark Triad Traits and Link to Promiscuity

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In their seminal 2002 paper “The Dark Triad of Personality,” social psychologists Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams introduced the so-called dark triad of personality.

The dark triad refers to the constellation of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, which are all tendencies toward "dark" behaviors that can be found in the normal population.

There is a considerable overlap among the dark personalities. To varying degrees, they all imply tendencies toward self-promotion, duplicity, contempt, emotional coldness, callous exploitation, and aggression. Despite their overlap, the dark triad traits are distinct personality constructs, and each has its own core facets.

Narcissism is characterized by a grandiose self-image, a distorted sense of entitlement, an excessive need for admiration, and contempt toward others; Machiavellianism involves tendencies to deceive, manipulate, and exploit others to achieve their own selfish ends; and psychopathy entails an unusually high need for excitement and thrills, difficulties feeling arousal except in dangerous circumstances, and a reduced sensitivity to other people's suffering.

A considerable body of evidence suggests the dark triad traits are linked to promiscuity. Here, promiscuity is understood to include, not just more sex partners, but also the practice of a greater variety of sex, including tabooed sex. The mechanisms linking the dark triad traits and promiscuity remain poorly understood, however.

In a new study, Vlad Burtăverdea et al (2021) set out to answer this question. They hypothesized that sexual disgust and self-perceived mate value may explain the associations between the dark triad traits and promiscuity. Self-perceived mate value is a person's subjective sense of desirability as a partner on “the mating market.”

To test this hypothesis, the team analyzed data collected on dark triad traits, sexual disgust, promiscuity, and self-perceived mate value in 379 undergraduate students (mean age = 21.44; 100 men and 270 women). To measure sexual disgust, they used a 31-item scale that measures eight dimensions of sexual disgust: taboo, incest, unusual sex, oral sex, BDSM, hygiene, same-sex attraction, and promiscuity.

The results showed that participants high on the dark triad traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) had lower levels of sexual disgust and higher scores on promiscuity, in line with previous findings.

While the dark triad traits were correlated with promiscuity, only narcissism was strongly associated with higher self-perceived mate value, and only psychopathy was strongly linked to limited sexual disgust toward frequent sex and a wide variety of sex, including tabooed sex.

Machiavellianism was the weakest correlated for sexual disgust of the three dark traits. Burtăverdea et al (2021) suggest that this may be because individuals high on Machiavellianism tend not to volunteer sexually-oriented information. They may also be less oriented toward potentially disgust-provoking sex, as they are less impulsive and less reckless than narcissists and psychopaths.

Narcissism was more strongly correlated with sexual disgust and a willingness to engage in sex surrounded by taboos, though to a lesser extent than psychopathy. Burtăverdea et al (2021) suggest that this finding may be explained by the fact that people high on narcissism have extremely high rejection sensitivity. So, while narcissists may fantasize about a wide variety of sex and sex partners, including tabooed sex, their high rejection sensitivity and fear of their ego being threatened may put a brake on their actual practice of promiscuity.

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By contrast, sexual disgust was found to act as a mediator between psychopathy and promiscuity. Thus, individuals high in psychopathy who scored high on self-perceived mate value were more promiscuous in terms of frequency and variety of sex because they had low levels of sexual disgust toward sex and sex partners of all types.