HEXACO and Dark Triad Personality Traits as Predictors of Male Attractiveness in Different Relationship Contexts

This study aimed to further investigate the perceived attractiveness of the Dark Triad (DT) personality in different types of relationships (i.e. friendship, short-term and long-term relationship) controlling for basic personality traits from the HEXACO model. The participants were 167 female students (M = 20.82 years, SD = 1.54) who rated personality and attractiveness of a man with highly expressed DT characteristics (n = 91) or a low-scoring DT character (n = 76) presented in a vignette. In line with recent findings, we observed a high negative correlation between the Honesty-Humility factor and DT personality (r = -.88, p < .001). As hypothesized, there was a significant difference in attractiveness ratings for the two characters in the context of different interpersonal relationships, with high DT character rated as significantly more attractive than the low DT character in the context of short-term mating. Furthermore, the hierarchical regression analysis showed that DT personality had a unique contribution in predicting attractiveness in the context of short-term relationship, after controlling for the basic personality traits.