True crime fans know all about the love letters Ted Bundy received while sitting in prison. It’s a bizarre piece of history, especially considering the man was responsible for murdering numerous young women. And somehow, he still had women lining up to date him.
Bundy even married Carole Ann Boone during his murder trial. But forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland told HuffPost that these women aren’t necessarily attracted to the crimes themselves. For some, a man serving a life sentence can be “the perfect boyfriend”—after all, you know exactly where he is at all times.
The fascination with Bundy got University of São Paulo researcher Katharina da Silva wondering what draws people to partners with less-than-lovely personalities. Is there something about certain people that makes narcissism or manipulation attractive, even when everyone else can see the warning signs? To investigate, she and her colleagues surveyed 400 Brazilian adults for a study examining personality traits and romantic preferences.
Scientists Found Something Interesting About People Who Date Manipulative Partners
Participants answered questions about their own levels of narcissism, manipulation, and psychopathy, collectively known as the Dark Triad. They also rated how attractive they found those qualities in a potential partner. According to PsyPost, people who scored higher in these traits were generally more interested in dating someone similar. Narcissists preferred narcissists, and manipulators were drawn to other manipulators.
The researchers also asked participants to rate hypothetical partners on a scale of 1 to 7, and the difference was quite substantial. A kind, considerate person scored nearly 6, while someone described as calculating and willing to do whatever it takes scored about 2.4. Add a history of physical assault, and that number dropped to 1.5.
And money couldn’t save them either. Neither could fame or being ridiculously good-looking. Even when researchers gave the violent hypothetical partner a fortune, celebrity status or an attractive appearance, people still weren’t interested. Da Silva suspects the assault was enough to put people off, regardless of the other qualities.
“Prosociality still remains a far more desirable trait in the context of mate choice,” she told PsyPost.
There are limitations, of course. The partners were fictional descriptions without photos, and the participants were mostly educated adults recruited online. Since every hypothetical partner with appealing qualities also had a history of violence, the researchers couldn’t determine how people might respond to a wealthy, attractive manipulator without an assault charge.
So if a friend’s exes all seem cut from the same cloth, the common thread might be the friend.
The post The Surprising Reason Some People Keep Dating Narcissists, According to Science appeared first on VICE.
