Psychopathic Traits and Men’s Preferences for Mating, Parental, and Somatic Investment
In this study, our goal was to use an evolutionary perspective to examine how men who vary on psychopathic traits spend their time and energy across different domains of life in which people commonly invest time and energy. Mating involves spending time and energy on pursuing mating opportunities, often with new partners, whereas parenting involves spending time and energy on caring for children. Somatic investment has been considered less often in psychopathy research. It refers to the time and energy spent on ensuring one’s survival, including engaging in activities that can bring immediate rewards (for example, eating healthy and exercising) and activities that can provide delayed rewards (such as maintaining friendships and saving money). How men direct their time and energy across these three domains – mating, parenting, and somatic – has implications for how they behave within relationships.
To examine these issues, we collected data from 254 men between the ages of 24 and 35 using online platforms and paid participants $10 for completing the study. Participants were asked about their age, relationship status (single or in a relationship), and parental status (parent or not). We used the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale: Short Form to assess psychopathic traits.
We examined participants’ investments in these domains in two ways. First, participants were surveyed about their behavior and attitudes regarding each of the adaptive domains, including mating (for instance, “With how many different partners have you had sex within the past 12 months?”) and their level of agreement with statements about investments in parenting (“Being a good parent is rewarding”), and the somatic domain (“I work extra hard to make more money or get a promotion”). We used a statistical model that assessed how their scores on these variables were related to psychopathic traits and labeled this first model the “behavioral attitudes model.”
Second, we showed participants photographs of stimuli that capture activities in each of these three domains. For mating stimuli, we showed participants 10 attractive women’s faces. For parenting stimuli, we showed them 10 cute babies. Lastly, for somatic stimuli, we showed them people or objects that depict somatic investments that were either immediate/direct investments (for example, working out) or delayed/indirect (such as saving money) investments. After showing them the stimuli, participants were asked their likelihood of hooking up with the women in the photos, likelihood of adopting the babies from the photos, and how appealing the somatic activities appeared to them. This second method provides a way to assess how participants were affected by the stimuli of each domain. We labeled the statistical model estimating how the scores on these measures were related to psychopathic traits the “perceptions model.”
The findings showed that psychopathic traits were not associated with age or relationship status, but they were positively associated with being a parent, meaning that men higher in psychopathic traits were more likely to be parents than those lower in these traits.
With respect to the behavioral attitudes model, we found that the behavior and attitudes of men higher in psychopathic traits were aligned with spending more time and energy on mating and spending less time and energy on parenting and less time and energy in somatic domains. This finding suggests men with psychopathic traits may actually pursue more mating opportunities than other men but are less likely to engage in parenting or take care of themselves to secure a healthy future. In combination with psychopathic traits being associated with a greater likelihood of being parents, these findings also suggest men with psychopathic traits may not be investing in their own children’s health despite their increased likelihood of actually being fathers.
The findings for the perceptions model, on the other hand, showed that psychopathic traits were associated with positive perceptions toward mating stimuli and less positive perceptions toward indirect/delayed reward somatic activities such as saving money or meeting friends. Unlike the behavioral attitude findings, psychopathic traits were unrelated to parental perceptions or direct somatic perceptions (e.g., working out). Two possible explanations of these findings are that men with psychopathic traits may find children just as appealing as other men, or they may simply report they find children appealing to conceal their deceptive façade of lower parental investment.
This study has implications for understanding the romantic relationships and family dynamics of men with psychopathic traits. First, despite being more likely to be parents themselves and not reporting a negative bias against parental stimuli, men with psychopathic traits had lower parental investment, suggesting they might be deceptive and parasitic fathers who place the raising of their children on others. Second, men higher in psychopathic traits seem driven to engage in mating, suggesting that the romantic relationships involving these men could be superficial and perpetually at-risk for infidelity. Third, men higher in psychopathic traits are less likely to invest time and energy in securing their own long-term health, especially delayed reward activities that many fathers engage in, including working hard, saving money, and having friendships.
Nominations for the 2023 Graduate Student and Media Awards will open on June 1, 2023! The deadline for submission is September 30, 2023. Here is a link to the criteria and information about the procedure for making a nomination.
Awards – Aftermath: Surviving Psychopathy Foundation (aftermath-surviving-psychopathy.org)
