Psychopaths, ‘dark’ personalities

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If you just can’t ever get your hair to look right, take heart: At least you’re less likely to be a psychopath, according to a report by the Huffington Post. A study led by Nicholas Holtzman and Michael Strube at Washington University in St. Louis found that people with personality traits known as the “Dark Triad” — narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy — were better than others at using clothing, makeup and hairstyles to make themselves look attractive, Scientific American reported Tuesday.
Psychopathy is characterized by varying blends of certain personality traits, which may include egocentricity, manipulativeness, superficial charm, high stress tolerance, lack of fear, lack of empathy and lack of guilt or remorse.
The study involved 111 college students — 64 percent women — who were photographed in their everyday attire. Researchers then had each subject wash off any makeup and change out of his or her own clothes into a t-shirt and sweatpants. Subjects with long hair were asked to pull it back into a ponytail. All subjects were then photographed in this unadorned state.
The subjects also took personality tests that measured traits that included the Dark Triad. Additionally, each subject provided contact information for several friends, so that every person’s personality could be assessed by his or her peers. Each subject’s self-assessment and peer-assessment were combined to create a composite personality score. A separate group rated both sets of pictures for physical attractiveness.
Researchers found that in the first group of photos — in which subjects wore their own clothes and makeup –subjects who scored high marks for the Dark Triad were typically rated as more attractive than subjects who scored low marks for these traits. This was also true of subjects who scored highly for psychopathy alone.
However, in the second group of photos, in which subjects were forced to wear plain clothing and no makeup, there was no correlation between physical attractiveness and “dark” personal traits.
As Julie Beck of PopSci writes, these results suggest that “mean people are just as ugly as the rest of us, they’re just better at fooling everyone into thinking they’re hot.”

3 COMMENTS

  1. Well, not everyone is ugly. Some people look good even without any adornments, make-up or other efforts to look presentable, while some other people no matter what they do, they look grotesque and it is especially evident in photos which always tend to exaggerate the person's natural ugliness and visible flaws, to the point that they make some people look ridiculous – for example, someone looking at my pictures could falsely deduce from the way I look without adornments, that I am a mentally impaired freakish schizofrenic because of one side of my face always appearing swollen, with the eye on that side noticeably bigger than the other – and there is always that impression of a psychopatic frenzy or some other kind of craziness in that single eye's gaze, while the other eye look more ''normal'' and its sight is that of an intelligent person. This and some other facial asymmetries and extremely embarassing skin problems along with caricature-like dimensions of head and arms' length as compared to height etc. – all that makes some people very insecure and indeed, can result in social withdrawal, especially if that withdrawal and a complete lack of social life is partially blamed on our financial circumstances and stress that they can trigger. Well, that is my case at least. At least, I do not qualify as psychopathic individual. 😉 Haha, seriously, all to the contrary. I am a poet, an artistic and sensible mind, and I tend to cry a lot on movies. ;P I just don't wish for anyone anything bad. The exception perhaps would be some criminals – I do not have empathy for murders and other serious or repeat offenders. If they are punished, they deserved it. I don't believe in the possibility of change after a criminal serves his sentence. He will go out of the prison only to be worse and to take revenge on those who had something to do with his apprehension and punishment. He will feign remorse and pretend improvement, only to regain the society's trust and to get an early release – so that he may pursue new crimes, perhaps even more serious. That's for exceptions. As to psychopaths, I know a few of them – oh, yes, real life psychopaths who often use emotional blackmail, both mental and physical abuse, and complete lack of emotions other than uncontrolled anger when their demands are not fulfilled immediately – even the slightest detail can annoy them to the point that they are just impossible to handle at all… Sometimes, I don't even know how to speak to them, how to approach them because they seem to have such a disdain for other people's thoughts and feelings that they behave like wild beasts, unlike humans. Yet, they are apparently NOT insane by means of actual mental illness with hallucinations or delusions. That proves them to be either psychopathic or narcissistic individuals. One of them is my step-father back in my country, while another is my ex-husband… ;P So, I think I can recognise this type of personality easily.
    A.

  2. Sorry for ''eating'' characters as I write… ;P I know it should have been ''looks'' instead of ''look'', ''murderers'' instead of ''murders'' etc. – I always have the same problem when writing on a computer keyboard. ;P I don't like to appear stupid because I am not. I know how to spell in English although it is not my native language. So, I always clarify that after having noticed some errors in my comments when it's not possible to edit them. Noth that I care, but it is always good to avoid nasty remarks from other commentators who think that they can abuse others mocking them just because they don't know how to use their own language… ;P 😉 Greetings!
    A.

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