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Assortative mating and the dark triad: Evidence from the UK, Fiji, and meta-analytic review

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Gareth RichardsORCiD, Hannah Proctor, Emily Jackson

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).


Abstract

The ‘dark triad’ represents the socially aversive personality traits of Machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism (henceforth, ’narcissim’), and subclinical psychopathy (henceforth, ’psychopathy’). There is evidence of assortative mating suggesting romantic partners are more similar than chance for these traits at the start of relationships (initial assortment) and not becoming alike with time (convergence), that people seek out partners to whom they are similar (active assortment), and that partner resemblance is not explained by social stratification processes (social homogamy). As the literature relates primarily to Eastern European and North American populations, we present studies from the UK (N = 104 couples) and Fiji (N = 99 couples). These showed significant positive assortment for each dark triad trait (other than psychopathy in the Fijian sample), and suggest the effects are explained by initial and active assortment and not by convergence or social homogamy. We also submitted the literature to meta-analytic review (Machiavellianism: k = 10, N = 1302; narcissism: k = 14, N = 1645; psychopathy: k = 13, N = 1989) and observed positive within-couple correlations of small (narcissism, psychopathy) to medium (Machiavellianism) effect size for each of the dark triad traits.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Richards G, Proctor H, Lee E, Swann O, Jackson E, Galvin J, Dunbar RIM, Baron-Cohen S, Luo S

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Personality and Individual Differences

Year: 2024

Volume: 231

Print publication date: 01/12/2024

Online publication date: 16/08/2024

Acceptance date: 04/06/2024

Date deposited: 05/08/2024

ISSN (print): 0191-8869

ISSN (electronic): 1873-3549

Publisher: Elsevier Ltd

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112754

DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2024.112754

ePrints DOI: 10.57711/dh62-m084

Data Access Statement: Data and R code for Study 1 and the meta-analysis are available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/bk5c3/?view_only=44024f62c93f413cad829b5e8953638e).


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Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
Autism Research Trust, Autistica
AUTISM SPEAKS
EFPIA
European Union Horizon 2020
Innovative Medicines Initiative
MRC
NIHR
SFARI
Wellcome Trust 214322\Z\18\Z

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