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Studies Confirm That Bad Boys Get More Girls
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:32 PM
from the or-maybe-they-just-lie-better dept.
from the or-maybe-they-just-lie-better dept.
seattlle foodie sends along a New Scientist article outlining two recent studies that confirm what many have long suspected: bad boys get the most girls. "The finding may help explain why a nasty suite of antisocial personality traits known as the 'dark triad' persists in the human population, despite their potentially grave cultural costs. The traits are: the self-obsession of narcissism; the impulsive, thrill-seeking, and callous behavior of psychopaths; and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism. At their extreme, these traits would be highly detrimental for life in traditional human societies. People with these personalities risk being shunned by others and shut out of relationships, leaving them without a mate, hungry and vulnerable to predators."
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That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
But it is not an excuse. Women who repeatedly get used in these types of relationships and then go cry to their geek friends deserve no sympathy. They should be smart enough to figure it out.
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you shoudl be smart enough to not fall for a cute chick who is gorgeuos and seems cool but really just used you for your money right? Look it happens to the best of us because it is ingrained in us. Women who are abused are not the ones to blame. They are the ones who have the power to stop it but they are not really to blame.
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The problem, in a nutshell (Score:5, Funny)
Bad people are more focused than we are.
We started off talking about women, and inside of four posts we're discussing the merits of different browser types.
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Re:That's nice (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:That's nice (Score:5, Informative)
If she really do say that isn't that more or less an invite? Have you tried kissing her once she say it? If not the blame is on you my friend.
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Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Ya, see, thats the point where you're supposed to put your tongue in her mouth. Failing to do so results in you not getting laid, and her continuing her search elsewhere.
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Re:That's nice (Score:5, Funny)
I think at this moment Ted Nugent said it best "When in doubt, whip it out...."
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Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
They should be smart enough to figure it out.
I'm not sure if this was something from a Buddhist monk, but I always took it to heart:
"The first step to having free will is to admit you have none"
The point is that if you ignore your instincts(or 300 years of evolutionary programming) you will never over come it. You first must become aware of your limitations and natural impulses so that you can deal with them.
If you become aware of such things then you are able to take a 3rd person view of yourself when such natural instincts arise and then are better able to deal with the situation with a clear head.
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Re:That's nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, in other words, you should be smart enough to figure it out.
Not exactly. "Aware" is a better word that "smart". You could have a PHD in financial forecasting or evolutionary biology and still fail to see a person is using you due to emotional feelings.
Simply being aware of your biological limitations doesn't solve the issue either but its a start. It doesn't require any intelligence other willingness to pay attention to yourself and to question your own actions which many in western society see as a character flaw.
But in truth, once you start asking "Why am I doing this?" you see how stupid you can be sometimes.
Of course telling people that love is a chemical that can be synthesized makes you unpopular with the ladies, but I've gotten out of unhealthy relationships with that mentality.
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Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe, the women that do end up with nice guys actually stay with them.
This would trivially explain why bad boys get more women. Nice guys get fewer, but keep them longer.
I was rarely single in the 10 years I was dating before marriage. But I can count the women without using up all my fingers. It didn't hurt that I actively avoided brainless sluts, with only one very breif exception.
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"brainless sluts" (Score:5, Funny)
You wouldn't still have her number, would you ?
8)
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The bitches like it (Score:5, Funny)
...that's why it works
What about... (Score:5, Funny)
Trolling
Re:What about... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What about... (Score:5, Funny)
Sure. Just as soon as Slashdot gets some chicks.
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but.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not really the "bad boy" like the article claims.
Girls are attracted to that guy who steps on everybody's toes for his own personal gains. A go getter, powerful person who aims high. These are people with leadership qualities, and in the "badboy" circle, they're "ring leaders."
Girls run after these guys because with such a mate, her offsprings would have a better chance of survival.
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Re:but.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most women do not consciously realize they select a mate on these criteria, but they do. So do men. There is a lot more compulsive, animal behavior in humans than we care to admit.
Women do sit around and discuss it, just not necessarily in terms of genetics. But when women think or say "he's so strong", "he has a big dick", "i can control him so he'll stick around and help with the baby", etc.. Think about what these ultimately mean to a female and why she may be attracted to them.
Whether you are aware of it or not, these cues tell you that your children with that mate "will have all the advantages they need to edge out those mutants from down the block"!
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Re:but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also more generally instead of going into genetics and stuff women like guys who are confident and can take charge of situations. It's an attractive quality. This quality isn't found very often in "nice guys". Most nice guys are too afraid to cross any lines with others. From my experience girls really want nice guys but confidence takes priority and confidence is found easily in jerkfaces.
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Re:but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Girls are attracted to that guy who steps on everybody's toes for his own personal gains. A go getter, powerful person who aims high. These are people with leadership qualities, and in the "badboy" circle, they're "ring leaders."
I know a guy like that... he's in college with me; very intelligent, rather charismatic, extremely eloquent and well-educated -- and at the same time very arrogant, narcissistic and even a bit Macchiavellian. Oh, and either very insecure, or very threatened by me. Or both.
Unlike him, I'm rather anti-social and quite geeky and nerdy. When we met, I was in a stable relationship, which has ended in the meantime. He had some short flings, of which I've heard from his ex girlfriends.
Now, when my relationship ended some year and a half ago, we were near the point of mutual disdain; I don't know what exactly about me bothered him, but I find it convenient to simply reciprocate other people's attitudes. Anyway, at that point he was trying to establish his macho identity, juggling around four girlfriends at any given time, though never really getting to sex. That is why some of the single girls he was toying with dumped him. But mostly, he kept trying to steal other guys' partners; I know of at least three relationships he tried to destroy.
Then I got involved with my current girlfriend, who is in college with us, and who is almost as anti-social as I am, and a far better judge of character (so what you're reading is in great part her analysis, as presented to me). And he tried for a coup de grace: stealing his arch-nemesis' girlfriend. I had been pretty broken up about my first break-up, so the second one should have destroyed me, I guess.
Needless to say, my girlfriend would never suffer the likes of me if she weren't madly in love. So his advances were unsuccessful; even more so because I do not act jealous, especially when there is a possibility that I am simply being provoked. She saw through his plan, too (his previous actions with other couples were a dead giveaway), and outright rejected him.
He ended up with a freshman girl, and now appears to be monogamous.
Now, what was this lengthy and probably fairly boring story about: even the so-called bad guys, with everything working for them, don't end up with all the girls.
Most of the girls my colleague had been juggling were quite entranced with him; one of them told me she'd been considering breaking up with her boyfriend for him. But apparently, the bad boy failed to steal a single good guy's girlfriend.
BTW, I don't know whether I qualify as a good guy; I don't care much how people perceive me, but I do know that I tend to come off as arrogant and cynical until you get to know me better.
Point is, bad boys spend quite a bit of energy on getting girls. I watched some of my colleague's efforts, I heard rather more about them, and I know I would never invest so much energy in such a venture. The reason they get more girls, when they do get them, is also correlated with the amount of energy they invest.
I invest my energy in one girl at a time. That means that if I do not succeed, I fail 100%. My colleague, juggling four girls at any given time, fails only 25% whenever he is rejected. And even if each of us courts the same number of girls, he will have gone through his girls much faster than I. This alone gives him "more girls".
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Re:but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't matter. If it gets more women, more children are likely to result. Any behavior that results in more children is likely to be selected for because we have such a low mortality rate and competition for survival is low. Competition for resources is not, but it's pretty hard in today's society to well and truly not be able to survive. There are lots of people who "go hungry" but much rarer to have people starve.
This is an unfortunate situation for humanity. On one side, we have to treat everyone as humans, we are all in the same boat together. On the other, we have a variety of incredibly negative selective pressures that could drown our species. We can't advocate social darwinism, we know what that leads to, so I think it's time for science to go up to bat for our future. Not eugenics or darwinism, rather, our goal should be to improve -everyone-. If so-called stupid people reproduce more, and we don't do anything to make everyone smarter, through widely available gene therapy or better schooling or whatnot, then we will eventually have far, far too many of those stupid people.
I don't mean to make any accusations here or insult anyone, but there are a number of traits that are widely agreed upon to be negative that seem to be correlated with reproductive rates. Humanity has been so dominant for so long that there are no selection pressures for the opposite traits, and we're going to be left with the consequences unless some radically successful genetic modifications take place. We cannot, should not ever punish anyone or infringe on the rights of anyone who we think is dumb, or is mean, or is a narcissist merely because of those reasons. I cannot stress enough that isn't a position I advocate. But we can encourage widespread adoption of genetic advancements. It needs to be fair, it needs to be free, and it needs to be global. We managed to eradicate small pox with something remarkably close to gene therapy, it's time to do it again.
The longer we wait the harder it will be to accomplish.
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Re:but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Naaah, you're wrong.
Well, you're kinda close. What you mean is girls like guys who are nice to them. Telling off everybody else as the mood takes you is just fine. If there's any woman who isn't attracted to you for her being the only one you bother being polite to, I haven't met her yet.
Of course, if you *really* want to attract them, the correct approach is to treat most everybody with barely restrained contempt, her with casual indifference, and another prettier girl with impeccably debonair politeness. Once you get those competitive instincts going, whatever qualities you may or may not possess become all but utterly irrelevant. Funny how that works...
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Arghhhh! (Score:5, Funny)
I know that's the only reason I would ever pirate software---chicks dig a nice new copy of Leisure Suit Larry.
On with the posts (Score:5, Funny)
Studies confirm... (Score:5, Funny)
Classic prisoners dilemma (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a large enough population of players where nearly everyone plays co-operate, the 2 or 3 assholes who play to betray do quite well. They only pay the price if they play the same opponent a few times. Without paying the price, they will do quite well.
END COMMUNICATION
Next month's headline: (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
The nicest bunch of guys anywhere on the net.
dating books (Score:5, Interesting)
There are some how-to books for dating that advocate being a complete asshole. I download (pirate) books more than anything, and occasionally I'll see a dating guide that I'll skim over. Anyone with a social life has probably noted that there is a serious art in treating women like crap, and it will get you laid quickly.
To speculate why this trait would be advantageous from an evolutionary standpoint, many people who treat women like crap have a "me-first" attitude, and are skilled manipulators of their social surroundings. To use an anecdote, I have a friend who is very good at picking up smokin'-hot young women in college bars (hes in college too). Despite having a relatively-low GPA, being a serious pot-head, and alcoholic, he has managed to finagle scholarship after scholarship out of his department. People like him; but I have never met anyone that the adage "familiarity breeds contempt" applies to more. I unfortunately know him well enough to understand that he is a borderline psychopath in regards to his empathy for other human beings.
Back to why this is an evolutionary advantage, his "me-first" attitude will become an "us-first" attitude when he gets married, he will have no problem fucking-over his friends, co-workers, bosses, and neighbors for personal gain, because people will tolerate it to a certain extent. This is because he is largely like-able, although he avoids people enough so that they don't grow tired of his constantly selfish attitude.
To sum my point, so-called "bad boys" that women like are skilled social manipulators that pull no punches. They probably are impressed by that, although this person has few desirable traits, people seem to like him, and also he gets what he wants by asserting social dominance through being well-liked.
Well, I RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit conclusion. I have not had many partners during the last couple of years, but it wasn't because nobody was attracted to me, rather it was because I was in a relationship that lasted more than 3 years. The findings in the study could just as well be explained by suggesting women don't stay in a relationship with an asshole, or that the assholes don't bother with long term relationships, resulting in "bad guys" having multiple short relationships while the "nice" guys have fewer longer ones. You really can't conclude much about women's preferences from this.
Re:This is why... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This is why... (Score:5, Funny)
At least some lotion, too.
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Insightful)
Although this is common knowledge to most males, women constantly state that this is in fact false, and not only do they say it, they seem to truly believe it. Of course this "belief" seems to have no basis in reality as they talk to their "nice" guy friends about how they wish they could just find a "nice" guy, all the while ignoring him to chase the guys they constantly complain about...
yes... I've had that speech from women far too often "you're so nice, why can't the guys I date be more like you?" (ummm... maybe you would consider dating the person you want your guys to be like???)
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as someone who was a "nice guy" all through highschool, it's the fault of the nice guy as well. Why buy the cow if the milk is free? If a "nice guy" is going to be a "good friend" and supply emotional support/fulfillment then the cute girl doesn't have to have that need met by her conceited prick boyfriend. Girls who date pricks will always want to have a nice guy friend, because girls need emotional fulfillment in the same way that guys need sexual fulfillment. So all you nice guys out there stop giving it away for free, get your needs met as well or get out of that relationship. When they say "you're so nice, why can't the guys I date be more like you?" point out that emotionally they are dating you, they just happen to be fucking someone else.
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Insightful)
I could not put it better. Please...someone with mod point hit the parent up here.
The sad thing is....SO many guys don't learn this till much later in life. You blow it in your teen years when you can do your most and best serious fucking....
I wish to hell I'd learned this lesson early in life when I was 16+....I did pretty good, but, nowhere NEARLY as well as some of my friends, and I just never knew why back then. Thankfully I figured it out in my 20's.....
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Interesting)
When this topic arises, I often, if not always, link to the article What Happened to All the Nice Guys? [craigslist.org] .
Every nice guy's recommended reading.
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever... IMHO younger partners are quite frankly not as good in bed. Yeah there are some limits to be sure, but in general it just gets better. There is nothing special about being young.
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Funny)
To butcher and use for it's meat later on?
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only will this make you less of an emotional bitch for her, but it will also show at least some of the qualities that she seems to like -- assertiveness, bluntness...
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Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect many of the guys here have heard that, and I am no exception. I used to joke that I was the most attractive guy in the world to women who weren't looking for a relationship because of how frequently married women had wonderful things to say about me. (the most painful was when they implied I must be fighting off the women because I was so wonderful; that certainly never matched my experience)
Since I have gotten married I these comments haven't stopped, though they are now made to my wife instead of me. My wife is constantly being bombarded with "You're so lucky!", "How on earth did you find him?", "Where was he hiding?" and the like. Like others here, not only was I not hiding, but couldn't get a date for the life of me (I can count the women I dated on my thumbs, and interestingly they both asked me out, meaning that exactly 0% of the women I ever asked out said yes).
I don't know why it should be so shocking that if the criteria you use to choose your dates doesn't have anything to do with what you are looking for that the chances of getting what you are looking for are slim. However, it seems that for most people (women and men) the idea of screening candidates by qualities that actually match the things you want is alien.
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Re:Women are somewhat masochistic... (Score:5, Insightful)
It turns out, women are so self-conscious in High School that, even seeming that you are at some point where you are able to display that you better than them, they immediately want to latch on.
I have since grown from this pattern, which works, for a select purpose.
Some women will never grow up, and if you want to have one like that, what worked in High School, will probably work now.
For the most part, however, women do mature to a point where a good provider is the best choice for her.
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Re:Women are somewhat masochistic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many self-described "nice guys" seem to believe that a woman should be put on a pedestal and treated like a delicate flower. The man in her life should hold doors for her, give her gifts, and obey her every whim. He should listen to her, support her no matter what, and never let slip the slightest criticism or contrary opinion.
The problem is... a lot of us don't actually want to be treated like that -- to be quite frank, it's annoying as hell. Yes, we want a man who's nice, helpful, respectful, etc., but we'd rather have someone who pays attention to what we really want than some guy who thinks that acting like a puppy dog will get him laid.
I like guys who aren't always there for me because it means they have lives of their own. I like guys who are not afraid to express their opinions -- criticism can be useful, and I love a good argument. And I like guys who don't pretend that I'm a flawless godly being, but instead acknowledge that I'm a regular human with as many faults as anyone else.
Does this mean I like assholes? Perhaps, if you define an asshole as someone who treats me the way I want to be treated rather than the way guys like you think I should be treated, but I certainly have no desire to date a "nice guy."
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Re:translation (Score:5, Funny)
Which language did you translate it into?
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Re:study doesn't comment... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's too bad--it sounds like all the data about sex life is self-reported, so if they did comment on whether the sex was consensual, I'm sure it would totally be a valid conclusion. After all, bad boys would never be inclined to lie about their sexual conquests and prowess on a study questionnaire.
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Re:study doesn't comment... (Score:5, Funny)
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