Do Nice Guys Really Finish Last?

think about. There's nothing else in my life. I have done so consistently every single week for the past ten years. You know. My initial motivation for doing this podcast was simply to put a microphone on people in my field and shine a spotlight on their amazing research. I've learned so much about psychology over the years from these incredible guests, and I hope you've learned a lot as well. I truly hope this podcast has brought you a lot of

value over the years. If it has, I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a positive comment on iTunes. Every comment means a lot to me. For this special tenth anniversary episode, I thought we'd do something a little different and a lot of fun. We'll be doing a deep scientific dive trying to answer the age old question do nice guys really finish last? At the core of this question is the so called nice guy paradox. The

nice guy paradox can be stated like this. On the one hand, there is a common perception that in terms of sexual prowess and romantic relationships, nice guys finish last. On the other hand, although women often portray themselves as wanting to date kind, sensitive, and emotionally expressive men, when actually presented with a choice between this quote nice guy and an unkind, insensitive, emotionally closed, macho man or jerk, they almost always seem to reject the nice guy in

favor of his more macho competitor. This paradox is everywhere in popular culture. For instance, here's the depiction of a reformed nice guy on Asque Men. He says, a wise man once told me, as a man, you have to die once in order to live. I never fully appreciated his advice, nor did I understand it until I experienced it firsthand. From that time on, I understood the origins of the jerk verse. Nice guy battle readers may be

asking themselves, what in the world is this guy talking about? Well, I'm referring to the widely known fact that women habitually date men that are jerks. While the quote nice guys are often left twiddling their thumbs in solitaire, does this sound familiar to anyone? Figurely speaking, In order for a man to enjoy the company of women and be able to seduce them, his inner nice guy must die through heartache. It's at this point that his inner bad boy surfaces

and goes on the prowl. That's from Curtis Smith. And here is the perspective of a woman in the popular magazine Mademoiselle. Quote. Not long ago, I watched my friend Laney, an assistant county prosecutor who spends her days putting criminals behind bars, try to choose between a sweet guy who sent her poems and flowers and petted her cats and a guy who wore sunglasses indoors and found a way to hit on every woman who came his way. Laney

fell madly in love with the second guy. But the first guy adores you, I said, I don't even think the second guy even likes you very much. Sorry, she said, but the first guy is dull, ouch and honestly at first blush. The psychological literature kind of does seem to confirm that there really is a paradox going on here. Considered one of the most prominent research paradigms for examining

nate preferences. In a seminal nineteen eighty six research paper, David Buss and Michael Barnes asked ninety two married couples which factors they considered most desirable in a mate. As you can see in this table, the most important fact was whether the partner was kind and considerate. Many studies since then have reported kindness as one of the top features reported by participants in their rankings of preferred characteristics

in a meet. Yet research shows over and over again that those who score high in dark personality characteristics have many more sexual partners. And heck, the media loves these kinds of headlines, immediately translating correlations into causation. For instance, consider this article from The Independent, reporting on a correlation between being bad and number of sexual partners. The headline boldly proclaims why women really do love self obsessed psychopaths?

But is this really true? Do most women really love self obsessed psychopaths? Well, looks like we may finally have some answers. In recent years, a good bit of scientific research has been conducted on this topic, both directly and indirectly. In this episode of the Human Potential Lab, we will explore this fascinating topic in a number of ways, drawing on many different literatures. Here's a high level outline of

today's episode. First, I will pinpoint exactly what women mean when they use terms such as quote bad boy and quote nice guy. Then I will discuss the psychology of individuals who are primarily driven by selfish desires and how they go about obtaining their mating goals. Then we will look at what women actually want, including what some women

want and what some women want some of the time. Finally, I will present what I think are the most reasonable conclusions based on all of the current evidence, and I'll give my advice and recommendations. I want to acknowledge upfront that this episode focuses on heterosexual men and heterosexual women. That's because that's what the research sample has been based on,

and that's the area I personally know most about. However, I would definitely like to see more research on this topic among different sexual orientations, and I suspect since we're all human a lot of this research still applies in many ways to other sexual orientations. I highly recommend that you watch this episode on the Psychology Podcast YouTube channel

so that you can see the slides un presenting. All Right, ladies and gents, roll up your sleeves and men, put on that leather jacket and jel up your hair, because it's time to finally get to the bottom of this age old mystery. All right, let's start with a review of how bad boys and nice guys are perceived. What does it even mean to be perceived as a bad

boy or a nice guy. In a study from nineteen ninety nine, Edward Harold and Robin Millhausen asked one hundred and seventy four female undergraduates enrolled in a first year course on couple in Family relations why they think nice guys are more likely'd have fewer sexual partners. The researchers found that there were a number of different explanations for why nice guys are perceived as sexually inexperienced. One reason some women suggested was that nice guys are simply less

forward with women. One wrote to me, nice guys aren't as persistent or agressive, and don't use sleazy tactics to add another notch to their bedposts. Another reason was that nice guys want serious relationships and value commitment. Some women wrote that they desired nice guys as friends instead of lovers. As one woman wrote, nice guys are the ones we always see as just friends and generally aren't seen as potential partners. In general, nice guys are overlooked when it

comes to sexual relationships. Out to the nice guy. Some women in their sample conceptualized nice guys as needy, weak, predictable, boring, inexperienced, and unattractive. One woman wrote, nice guys often don't provide the drama and adventure women think they want, Thankfully. Other women were more flattering in their description of nice guys, viewing them as having positive traits such as a good personality,

high standards and morals, and politeness. Nice guys were also considered to be more passive in their interactions with women, lacking confidence and being unsure of themselves. They were also thought to be willing to wait for sex because they cared about their partners and treated them with respect. In general, nice guys were thought of as less physically attractive. As one woman put it, nice guys are generally not as

attractive and have a great personality to compensate for the shortcoming. Unfortunately, looks not personality tend to get a women into bed. Double ouch. Where are these women coming from? Make sure I don't ever meet them? But anyway, no wonder nice guys are so frustrated. I would also beg to differ with this woman on her foundational assumptions, but more on that later. Now let's talk about perceptions of bad boys. In this study, perceptions of bad boys fell into four

different categories. One group of women saw bad boys as rebellious, mysterious, daring, arrogant, and dangerous. Another group saw bad boys as macho, strong and confident. A third group viewed bad boys as fun, adventurous, spontaneous, and outgoing, and a fourth group saw the bad boy as sexy, charming, good looking, and sexually experienced. Women cited many different reasons for why bad boys are sexually experienced. Some women suggested that bad boys use aggressive, dishonest, and

manipulative tactics to obtain sex. Others suggested that bad boys are more likely to approach and ask women for sex because of their self confidence and prior successes. With women, which made them less fearful of rejection. Participants reported that the sexual success of bad boys led them to be

viewed as more desirable and appealing by women. Bad boys were also considered to be more physically and sexually attractive, approaching relationships, more casually, caring more about sex than intimate relationships, and sexually unfaithful. Look these are colleged aged women in this study, between the ages of eighteen and twenty five years at one university writing these responses, so the findings

must be taken with a grain of salt. Women at different stages of their life and with different life experiences may have different conceptions of as well as interest in quote bad boys and quote nice guys. Still, this research provides a general idea of how these different kinds of men are perceived. Taking these results at face value, we can see that nice guys are perceived as good people, friends,

and marriage partners, but not passionate lovers. Bad boys, on the other hand, are perceived as having more of a mix of positive and negative qualities. On the one hand, bad boys are perceived as having some very attractive qualities such as sexiness, confidence, charm. On the other hand, they are also seen as exhibiting negative behaviors, such as aggression and duplicity. Therefore, a number of traits are quote bad in the sense that they are related to highly selfish,

exploitive mating strategies. Although a certain degree of self deception and other deception can be adaptive in the mating domain, particularly during the courtship phase, some individuals take deception and selfishness to the extreme, almost completely lacking in the emotional intelligence skills required to respect the feelings of others, let alone form an intimate, meaningful, and committed relationship, not that

they necessarily want to. Differences in various personality traits may exist because of the adaptive benefits they conferred on survival and reproductive outcomes. Throughout the course of human evolution. Those with low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness behave in ways that may increase their short term mating success. A reduction in both of these traits. Agreeable and conscientiousness is an integral component of a number of personality disorders that are

receiving considerable research attention. In recent years, psychologists have looked at the traits and behaviors of these socially undesirable individuals those with narcissism, macavelianism, and psychopathy. Although they have traditionally been studied only in clinical settings, researchers have started to

investigate these traits in behreha in the general population. Let's now zoom in on the dark triad of personality really get into the head of people who score high in the dark triad and look at their mating outcomes to get a better sense of how these dark personality individuals

accomplish their selfish mating goals. As a quick description, narcissism involves entitled self importance, Macavelianism comprises a sense of strategy and long term manipulation to get longer term goals, and psychopathy involves thrill seeking behaviors, impulsivity, lying, boldness, and meanness. So in this seminal paper from two thousand and nine, Peter jo Nason and his colleagues looked at the link between the Dark triad personality traits and short term mating.

As you can see in this table, the number of sexual partners as well as the motivation to seek a short term mate we're both significantly correlated with the Dark triad personality traits. But and I'm going to keep saying this over and over again today. Correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation. What is it about dark triad individuals that is so attractive? If anything, Some of the earliest research on this topic suggests that it is their physically attractive veneer that is attractive,

not necessarily their unadorned bodies. Consider this study conducted by Samine Vizier and colleagues. They found that narcissists put a lot more preparation to their appearance, were fashionable, stylish, and expensive clothing, appeared cheerful, and were rated as more attractive at first sight compared with those scoring lower in narcissism.

They also found effects unique to each gender. Female narcissists applied more makeup, pucked their eyebrows more, and revealed more cleavage than females scoring lower in narcissism, and male narcissists tended to ditch their eyeglasses and pump up their muscles more compared with the less narcissistic males in their sample. According to the researchers quote, our results show that narcissism can be judged with some degree of accuracy on the

basis of physical appearance. Alone. Furthermore, the magnitude of this effect is sizable considering how little information was available to the observers. These findings suggest that physical appearance reflects narcissist personality, preoccupation with good looks and desire to be the center of attention, and serves as a vehicle with which to

promote their status. Multiple studies confirm those findings. In this paper from twenty twelve, Nicholas Holtzman and Michael Strub make the case that people with dark personalities more generally not just narcissism, but also psychopathy and machiavelianism, are really good at creating a physically attractive veneer, at least at first meeting. They conclude that quote, dark personalities construct appearances that act as social wars, possibly for facilitating their cutting social strategies.

Why are narcissists so charming at first sight? Is it just their physically attractive venear? To go deeper into this issue, mirkha Back and colleagues in twenty ten tried to capture the quote charismatic air of narcissism in the laboratory. Over the course of three studies, they found that narcissism was

indeed correlated with popularity at first sight. Second, and most alarming, in my view, the aspects of narcissism that were most maladaptive in the long run, such as exploitativeness and entitlement, proved to be the most attractive qualities at first meeting. Third, an examination of observable verbal and nonverbal behaviors, as well as aspects of physical appearance, revealed four main characteristics that

make up the charismatic air of the narcissist. The four main characteristics of the charismatic air are attractiveness, interpersonal warmth, competence, and humor. As the researchers put it, quote, narcissism predicts all of the four relevant qtamines. Attractiveness from their flashy and neat attire, interpersonal warmth from their charming glances at strangers, competence from their self assured behavior, and humor from their witty verbal expressions. As a result, they thus should enjoy

greater initial popularity than non narcissists end quote. Look. I think initial is doing a lot of work here, considering that further studies have shown that the popularity of the narcissists tends to take a nose dive upon further meetings, especially within the context of a romantic relationship. So I think it's a really important caveat to point out here. Okay, let's go even further in understanding the correlation between dark

traits and number of sexual partners. Dark personalities are also really good at targeting victims to this study by Sarah Wheeler and colleagues, which found that people who score higher on psychopathic traits are better able to judge vulnerability to victimization after viewing very short clips of targets just walking. Kind of scary when you think about it. The dark triade is also correlated with a long list of strategies

for them to reach their selfish goals. This paper by Peter jo Nason and his colleagues from twenty ten shows that the aggressive and narcissistic strategies of dark tried individuals include stealing mates from others and using exploitive and coercive strategies to retain their meat. As you can see on this long list, some of the meat retention strategies include vigilance, monopolizing the mate's time, inducing jealousy, and derogating competitors. Yikes.

So consistent with a lot of these other findings, research has found that those with Dark Triad traits have a very specific love style, if that that's what you want

to call it. Peter Jennason and Philip Kevanaugh found in twenty ten that those who score higher on measures of the Dark Triad tend to score higher and lutis and ProGMA love styles, meaning that they have more of a game playing and cerebral utilitarian what can I get out of you way of loving, as the researchers put it, quote loving with the one's head and not one's heart may be an expression of the limited empathy slash emotional

systems characteristic of these individuals. It's very clear that these individuals who score high in the Dark Triad really do view the meeting domain as a competition, as a game, and in some way they're right. It is a competition. The main domain is a competition. You are competing against a lot of other men for the attention of a woman that you're attracted to. That's true. And people who do tend to treat it as a game and tend to really take that competition seriously do tend to do better.

But as we'll keep exploring, throughout the rest of this episode. Is that really the only way you have to go about it to reach your mating goals? Spoiler no it's not, but more on that later. Finally, the trait of impulsivity is also relevant here. Researchers have found that psychopathy is associated with quote dysfunctional impulsivity, defined is the tendency to make quick decisions without much forethought, especially when it leads

to difficulties. Interestingly, narcissism was more strongly related to functional impulsivity, defined is the tendency to make more quick decisions when it's beneficial and optimal. As the researchers put it, quote, it appears that narcissistic impulsivity involves venturesome social engagement, whereas psychopathic impulsivity stems from poor self regulation. To me, this suggests that not all members of the dark triad are alike, and narcissism seems to be the less dark but I

would say still dark member of this trio. Nevertheless, the higher levels of impulsivity among dark tried individuals undoubtedly contributes to their mating success. They're just more willing to jump right into a sexual situation without thinking about the consequences. On themselves and others. I don't know about you, but I'm going to need a cold shower after that one. I'm gonna take my jacket off here these dark, tried individuals. Whoo, Okay,

let's move on. Now that we've examined the traits and behaviors of socially undesirable individuals, let's take a closer look at what women actually want. Researchers have attempted to address this issue by having women in the laboratory make actual decisions about whom they would date. Then reviewing this literature will start with the foundational evidence and move through to

the latest research. In one of the earliest sets of studies conducted on this topic, Edward Sadala and his colleagues presented their participants with videotaped and ridden scenarios depicting two men interacting with each other. They varied on whether the male acted dominant or non dominant. Their idea of non dominance seemed to be one of submissiveness. For instance, here's an excerpt of a scenario in which the mail was depicted as dominant. John is five feet ten inches tall,

one hundred and sixty five pounds. He has been playing tennis for one year and is currently enrolled in an intermediate tennis class. Despite his limited amount of training, he is a very coordinated tennis player who has won sixty percent of his matches. His serve is very strong and his returns are extremely powerful. In addition to his physical abilities, he has the mental qualities that lead to success in tennis. He's extremely competitive, refusing to yield against opponents who have

been playing much longer. All his movements tend to communicate dominance and authority. He tends to psychologically dominate his opponents, forcing them off their games and into mental mistakes. In contrast, here's an excerpt of a scenario in which the same tennis player is instead depicted as non dominant. Note that the first three lines that I read before were kept the same across conditions. His serve and his returns are consistent and well placed. Although he plays well, he prefers

to play for fun rather than to win. He is not particularly competitive and tends to yield to opponents who have been playing tennis much longer. He is easily thrown off his game by opponents who play with great authority. Strong opponents are able to psychologically dominate him, sometimes forcing him off his game. He enjoys the game of tennis,

but avoids highly competitive situations. Across four studies, the researchers found that the dominant scenarios were considered more sexually attractive, although dominant John was regarded as less likable and not desired as a spouse. Taken at face value, this study seems to support the sexual attractiveness of the dominant alpha

male over the submissive beta male. The researchers concluded quote the results of all four experiments supported the prediction that sudance behavior would selectively increase the sexual attractiveness of males. Another study conducted at the University of London seems to confirm these findings. The researchers had eighty one women watch a one minute silent video of a male in three

dominance conditions. Low dominance was closed body posture, medium dominance was open body posture, and high dominance was open body posture with gesticulation, and they had women rate the males for sexual attractiveness. Results showed that higher dominance behavior significantly increased the attractiveness of the man. It's interesting to note how even in this highly controlled experimental setting, slight changes to the posture such as sitting position of a male

significantly increased his levels of attractiveness. According to the researchers, this indicates that women may use simple nonverbal signals of dominance as criteria for male attractiveness. I think this is also, in general a lesson to males that just even slight

tweaks to your behavior can change attractiveness as well. The researchers concluded, Thus, our results contribute to extant literature on the quote nice guy's finished last phenomenon by showing that dominant body postures do result in higher ratings of sexual attractiveness. Of course, this is not to argue that other variables such as pro social orientation do not mediate these results. Rather, when operationalized independently, dominant nonverbal behavior appears to increase women's

ratings of men's attractiveness. Okay, fair enough. At least they hint that there may be some additional nuance here, And it turns out there is additional nuance here. Enter a study by Jerry Berger and Mika Cosby in nineteen ninety nine called do Women Prefer Dominant Men? The case of the missing control condition? The researchers had one hundred and eighteen female undergraduates read the same exact descriptions of John

the tennis player. Remember John the tennis player from that prior study couple slides ago, But they added a crucial control condition in which some participants only read the first three sentences of the description. If you recall, these were the first three sentences that were consistent across all the conditions. John is five feet ten inches tall, one hundred and sixty five pounds. He has been playing tennis for one year and is currently enrolled in an intermediate tennis class.

Despite his limited amount of training, he is a very coordinated tennis player who has won sixty percent of his matches. So, consistent with the prior study that I mentioned, women found dominant John more sexually appealing than submissive John that was replicated. However, the John depicted in the control condition had the highest ratings of sexiness of them all. The researchers then asked women to indicate which of the adjectives used to describe John were ideal for a date as well as for

a long term romantic partner. They found that only one woman out of the fifty undergraduates in their sample actually identified dominant as one of the traits she sought in either an ideal date or a romantic partner. For the rest of the dominant adjectives, the two big winners were confident seventy two percent sought this trait for an ideal date, seventy four percent sought this strait for an ideal romantic partner, and assertive forty eight percent sought this trait for an

ideal date. Thirty six percent sought this straight for an ideal romantic partner. Not one woman wanted a demanding male, and only twelve percent wanted an aggressive person for a date and romantic partner. In terms of the non dominant adjectives, the big winners were easy going sixty eight percent sought this trait for an ideal date, sixty four percent sought the straight for an ideal romantic partner, and sensitive seventy six percent sought this trait for an ideal date an

ideal romantic partner. Not one women wanted a submissive male for either a date or romance. Other low ranked non dominant adjectives were shy two percent for dating, zero percent for romantic and quiet four percent for ideal two percent for romantic. I think that this study was revealing in

a number of ways. For one, it suggests that women may find dominance sexually attractive within the context of a competition where your man is competing against others, but they want the man to be sweet and sensitive to them. So that's one I think nuance of these findings. Another is that dominance seems to take many different forms. The dominant male who is demanding, violent, and self centered is not considered attractive to most women, whereas the dominant male

who is assertive and confident is considered attractive. As the researcher suggests, men who dominate others because of leadership qualities and other superior abilities, and who therefore are able and willing to provide for their families quite possibly will be preferred to potential partners who lack these attributes. Their research also suggests that sensitivity and assertiveness are not necessarily opposites,

and I think that's a really, really insightful finding. In fact, further research suggests that the combination of kindness and assertiveness might just be the most attractive pairing across three studies. Laurie Jensen, Campbell, and colleagues found that it wasn't dominance alone, but rather the interaction of dominance and pro social behaviors that women reported were particularly sexually attractive. In other words, dominance only increased sexual attraction when the person was already

high in agreeableness and altruism. I reviewed a lot of this literature in my twenty fourteen article is Kindness Physically Attractive? What I think is really interesting about this literature, and as some research has shown, is that the personality of an individual can actually affect perceptions of their physical attractiveness.

Considered this very interesting paper from twenty fourteen by Yan Zhong and colleagues, which found support for the notion that what is good is beautiful, finding that participants received higher attractiveness ratings when presented with positive personality information such as decent and honest. According to the researchers, the results suggest quote that the personality of an individual may affect his or her facial attractiveness evaluation. Look, I can resonate with this.

Sometimes I'm incredibly attracted to a woman I see somewhere, and then I approach them, and after a two minute conversation, I just don't find the physical attractive anymore. I think all of us can kind of relate to this experience, right, Okay? Moving on, A seminal study in two thousand and three sheds further light on the interaction between physical attractiveness and personality.

I really like this paper. It's a really clever study by Jeffrey Urbaniak and Peter Killman called physical attractiveness and the quote nice guy paradox Do nice guys really finish? Last? The researchers conducted two studies on college women in which they had women choose between men of various levels of niceness. Women were given a script in which a woman named Susan is participating in a game show that resembled aspects

of the pop or TV show The Dating Game. Susan is presented with the opportunity to date a number of different contestants and must choose between them in condition one, the nice Todd condition. Todd gave responses that would be associated with a nice guy, such as, quote someone who is in touch with his feelings and those of his partner, who is kind and attentive and doesn't go for all the macho stuff, also great in the bedroom, and puts

his partner's pleasure first. In condition two, the middle Todd condition, Todd gave more neutral responses, such as, a real man knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. He plays hard and works hard and is great in the bedroom. In condition three, the jerk Todd condition, Todd was portrayed as a somewhat insensitive, self absorbed, macho jerk, saying things like a real man knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. Someone who knows who he is, but keeps other people guessing and on

their toes. He doesn't go in all for that touchy feely stuff. He's also great in the bedroom and can tell his partner what he likes. Note that they kept that last part consistent across all the three conditions, so all three were described as being good in bed. The only thing that varied was their niceness. I think that was a really really clever experimental paradigm if you ask me. So.

What did they find? The researchers found that the nicer Todd was portrayed, the more or frequently he was chosen, and the more desirable he was rated as a potential marriage partner. A steady boyfriend and a platonic friend. He was also seen as generally more intelligent and sincere. When Todd was portrayed as more physically attractive, he was chosen more, but physical attractiveness didn't overwhelm the niceness factor. That's super interesting.

Where Todd was rated as more physically attractive yet less nice, it was the relative niceness that triumphed over the physical attractiveness. That's right. When it came to a dating or romantic partner, the majority of women rejected the insensitive man, even when he was more physically attractive than his counterpart. However, when it came to purely sexual relationships, a different pattern emerged. Uh oh. In these cases, niceness was less influential than

physical attractiveness. As the researcher's note quote. It may be that the nice guy stereotyped is more accurate in relation to relatively casual physical relationships than to more serious relationships. Still, the overall results of these studies suggest that although niceness may be less essential in these relationships, it still should not be a major hindrance as would be suggested by

the nice guy stereotype. Now at this point in the discussion, I think it would be beneficial to bring in the distinction between dominance and prestige. One striking similarity across all the studies we've explored here is the sample college students. Most college students have not had the years of expertise

that enable them to achieve success in a domain. This is important to keep in mind because the attainment of social status and the mating benefits that come along with it can be accomplished through compassion and cooperation just as much, if not more so, than through aggression and intimidation. Just looking at the social structure of grade school, it's easy to assume that dominance is the only roots of social status.

It would seem as though dark triad bullies who use intimidation, coercion, and fear inducing tactics are the only ones who rise in the status hierarchy. Unlike other species, however, humans have many alternative roots to high social status that don't rely on dominance. Beyond school, on the stage of life, knowledge has societal impact, and those with high prestige tend to

be recognized for their skills, success, and knowledge. Many scholars across ethnography, ethology, sociology, and socio linguistics believe that two main roots to social status, dominance of prestige arose in evolutionary history at different times and for different purposes. In the field of psychology, self reported measures of dominance and prestige are being distinguished at both the behavioral level and

the hormonal level. As I noted in my article The Myth of the Alpha Male, published in twenty fourteen on the Art of Manliness website, alpha men are not always the most physically dominant and aggressive. Interestingly, while advocates for acting dominant often point to chimps as proof of the exclusivity of this route to male status, recent research has shown that even among primates, alpha male status can be achieved not only through size and strength, but through adept

sociability and the grooming of others as well. Of course, the usefulness of empulling a dominance or a prestige strategy depends on an individual's own set of mental and physical dispositions, as well as the particular situation. Individuals who possess the physical ability to intimidate others or enforced threats, and who live in cultures or environments such as prison that promote the use of coercive techniques may be more oriented toward dominance.

Those who have the mental skills to acquire culturally valued information and skills and find themselves in social situations that don't force hot dominant hierarchies may be more oriented toward prestige. This seminal study from twenty thirteen by Joey Chang Jessica Tracian colleagues clearly distinguished between these two different paths to social status. They found that the dominance route is paved with intimidation, threats, and coercion, and is pueled particularly by

a form of pride called hubristic pride. Hebristic pride is associated with arrogance, conceit anti social behaviors, unstable relationships, well levels of conscientiousness, and high levels of disagreeableness, neuroticism, narcissism, and poor mental health outcomes. Hebristic pride, along with its associated feelings of superiority and arrogance, facilitates dominance by motivating

behaviors such as aggression, hostility, and manipulation. In contrast, prestige is paved with the emotional rush of accomplishment, confidence and success, and is fueled by dentic pride. Authentic pride is associated with pro social and achievement oriented behaviors. Authentic pride is associated with pro social and achievement oriented behaviors, agreeableness, conscientiousness,

satisfying interpersonal relationships, and positive mental health. Critically, authentic pride is associated with genuine self esteem, considering yourself a person of value, not considering yourself superior to others. Authentic pride, along with its associated feelings of confidence and accomplishment, facilitate

behaviors that are associated with attaining prestige. People who are confident, agreeable, hard working, energetic, kind, empathic, non dogmatic, and high and genuine self esteem inspire others and cause others to want to emulate them. As you can clearly see in this table, while both dominance and prestige were correlated with perceived influence and agency, only prestige was correlated with increased likability. It looks like you don't lose anything with prestige, but only

gain in likability. It's time to review all of this research and come to a general summary of what most women want. What a woman want. Taken together, it seems like the ideal man for a date or romantic partner is assertive, confident, physically attractive to them, whatever that means to them, socially exciting, easygoing as in not controlling, sensitive, kind, and prestigious while not being aggressive, demanding, dominant, shy, or

a pushover. I think that's a reasonable summary of the research. Now that may differ from the ideal man for a short term fling. The research suggests that for a short term affair, women may prefer physical attract in this trait over and prioritize that over other traits. But we'll have a lot more in a second to talk about the

distinction between long term and short term meeting preferences. Still, we have some lingering questions about the quote nice guy, and I put nice guy in quotes because I think that's really important to distinguish the quote nice guy from the genuinely, genuinely nice guy. One lingering question we still have is whether the quote nice guy is too nice.

As my friend the advice goddess Amy al Khon puts it, quote, Let's get something straight, the poor opposite of a bad boy is not a nice guy, but an overly nice guy. The difference is in the desperation nice guys call when they say they will overly nice guys call every twenty minutes to thank you for just being you. Kristin, my name is Christine. Their prey corrects, going out with an overly nice guy is like being beaten to death with

a Hallmark card. That's from Amy Alcon. And here's an article by Sandy Mecky in Women's Republic called nice Guys and why you should avoid them at all costs. As Sandy puts it, quote niceness is being able to handle social situations with no conflict. It means treating people with polite manners. Nice means the ability to be inoffensive. Also from this article, she makes clear that nice guy in quotes is referring to a very specific group of guys.

In her words, quote the group of guys we are talking about is the quote I am nice until I get what I want. Type of nice. Quote I will do anything and go out of my way to get what I want type of nice or being nice in fear of getting caught up in any conflicts and or rejection end quote. Sandy and Amy Alcon might both be onto something. Psychological research suggests that not just in the mating domain, but even in an organizational context, it really is possible to be too nice, and that the quote

right touch is important. As you can see in this figure, there appears to be a curve linear relation between assertiveness and effectiveness. Too little interpersonal assertiveness and the rated effectiveness as a colleague or leader is low and too much and its rate is low. But there does seem to be a right touch of assertiveness for effectiveness in an organizational context, and the same seems to apply in the

maining domain as well. Another issue is whether the quote nice guy is really just a euphemism for boring guy. Let's revisit this classic study by Bust and Barnes that I talked about early on in this episode. Yes, the number one most reported marital preference was kind considerate. However, right behind it, number two too was socially exciting. I think that's actually really interesting. So perhaps kind considerness without anything else is just by itself not sexually attractive or

even attractive as a meat. We all are human, you know, and we all like excitement, a little bit of excitement. I think related to these other questions is the question are nice guys too available? Look Supply and demand is a real thing, like anything in life. If you come across as too available and not choosy. People just aren't going to be as interested in you. It's part of

human nature, whether we like it or not. Also, we take a lot of our cues about the meat quality of an individual by looking at how others view them as a potential meat. The phrase in the psychological literature is called meat copying, and it's a very robust finding in psychology. As skywork Place and colleagues put it, when searching for a meat, one must gather information to determine

the mate value of potential partners. By focusing on individuals who have been previously chosen by others, one selection of mates can be influenced by another successful search, a phenomenon

known as mate copying. Place In colleagues did a real world test of this, having people report on their real mating interest in video recordings of speed dates, finding that both male and female participants showed maate copying effects of heightened short term and long term relationship interest toward individuals and dates they perceived as successful in the In the speed dating they also found that the relative attractiveness of observers and the observed played a mediating role in whom

an individual will choose to copy with higher physical attractiveness, obviously having the effect there. So again, physical attractiveness matters. Consider this study from twenty ten called Rejection Hurts the effect of being dumped on subsequent mating efforts. Christine Stanek and colleagues found that finding out potential partners were rejected by their last partner negatively affected their desire to pursue

a relationship with them. What's more, these scenarios produced intriguing sex differences, such that men's ratings of women fell after learning she had rejected her last partner, but women's ratings of men increased after the same information was introduced. However, in terms of sex differences, failing to disclose information about a past relationship was unappealing to both men and women,

though particularly so for women. Now that we've talked about what most women seem to want and covered some additional nuances about the quote nice guy, let's acknowledge that individual differences matter. Another way of putting this is what do some women want. You may have heard the phrase opposites attract, but that's not what the research actually shows. It seems like the truth of the matter is that like attracts like I think. This study is a really good example

of this. This study is called do Psychopathic Birds of a feather Flock together? Psychopathic personality, traits and romantic preferences. They found quite clearly that women with psychopathic traits were attracted to males with psychopathic traits, so that really is a thing. Another important individual differences variable is socio sexuality.

But before I explain what socio sexuality is, I want to make very clear that it's possible to score high in social sexuality and not be a psychopath, so the two are not synonymous. Quite simply, the socio sexuality dimension of human personality has to do with how high your

sex drive is. Socio Sexuality researchers measure social sexuality through behaviors such as how many different sexual partners have you had sex within the past twelve months, attitude such as sex without love is okay, and desire such as I have frequent fantasies about having sex with someone I'm not in a committed romantic relationship with. So social sexuality difference does a matter. For some women who score very low in social sexuality, they wouldn't even think about having sex

outside of marriage. Or having sex without love. It's just so far into them to even think of such a thing. But for a lot of women who score high in social sexuality, and I don't judge either way. I'm very sex positive. Women with high social sexuality have a very high sex drive and just love love having sex with as many different partners as possible, and love doesn't have

to be the central equation for them. And perhaps for them they're looking for the kinds of traits that people look more for in short term partners, such as physical attractiveness and niceness, just isn't as important for them for wanting to have sex. I mean, look, you know, women and men are both human. I think it's very obvious to think about men and their desire for short term

affairs and what they're looking for. It's very you can think about men, and it's very easy to think about men and what they look for when they're looking for a short term fling. But I think unfortunately society sometimes tends to shame women who have the same desires, and I do think that is very unfortunate. I just want to introduce this individual differences variable as a very important consideration, and a lot of things we're talking about today. Another

individual difference is variable that's important is sexism. Sexism does seem to have an effect on who we're attracted to, and researchers have actually identified two different types of sexism.

Hostile sexism, which is antipathy towards women who are viewed as trying to take men's power, such as quote women seek to gain power by gaining control over men, and benevolent sexism, which is endorsement of subjectively positive yet stereotypic beliefs towards women, such as quote, a good woman should be set on a pedestal by her man. This study

by Jeffrey holland colleagues brings all of this together. The researchers came up with a measure of quote assertive strategies by combing through two popular books written by speed seduction gurus, The Game and The Pickup Artist. This is a picture here of a very well known pickup artist who had his own TV show. His name is called Mystery, and he argued that to get women, you know, you really have to put on this fancy outfits, put on these

fancy outfits. You have to nig women, you know, kind of putting them down a little bit, keeping them on their toes, kind of making sure you kind of maintain power at all times. Well, the researchers operationalize this and came up with a scale of assertive courtship strategies, and based on their own interpretation of these techniques, they came up with this fourteen items scale, a set seeing three

particular assertive courtship strategies. The first is competition, so includes things like compete with other men who are interested in her even if she is with another guy, try to pick her up, and if she rejects, you don't give up easily. The second set of techniques is isolation, so try to get her alone or let her know you are in control, or find if she came to the party alone so you can take control of the situation.

And the third class of techniques is teasing or as the pickup artist called nagging, which includes things such as pick on her appearance or behavior, be a little insulting to her, and make a few jokes at her expense. So what do the researchers find. They found that socio sexuality was associated with a preference for assertive strategies. In particular men high in socio sexuality were more likely to employ assertive strategies, and women high in social sexuality were

more likely to be receptive to assertive strategies. But additionally, sexism also mattered in both the college and adult samples. Women scoring high in hostile and benevolent sexism traits were more receptive to assertive courtship strategies. Among college students, there was an interaction. Women with a combination of high social sexuality and high hostile sexism preferred men's dominant courtship strategy the most. Only in the adult sample, however, was male

sexism related to the use of assertive strategies. With a positive association between hostile sexism and assertive strategy use, the researchers suggest that people prefer courtship strategies that match their same quote courtship script. The study also highlights the importance of social sexuality in mat preferences and the importance of looking at different age groups college adults when studied courtship strategies.

Many of these assertive courtship behaviors may be more prevalent in college, lowering the variation in courtship strategies and making it more difficult for researchers to find an effect. It would also be interesting to see the effect of courtship behavior strategy use by females, but this study did not look at that in particular. Now we can add even further nuance here by asking what do some women want some of the time. Research suggests that women show changes

in their mating preferences across the ovulatory cycle. In particular, research shows that women's preferences for a short term meat who has quote good genes is enhanced when women are most fertile in their cycle. These trait indicators, such as physical attractiveness, muscularity, being socially respected, and being confrontative, should also be traits that most women value more in short term than long term meats. The results of a study

by Ganghestan and colleagues support the good genes hypothesis. When women are fertile and rating men's attractiveness as short term partners, they are particularly attracted to traits that tend to be valued in short term meets. No preference shifts in favor of traits deem more valuable in long term meats such as good father, faithful, warm, and financially successful were found

across the ablatory cycle. As the researchers conclude, women are attracted to features attractive in short term meets, but not long term meets when fertile, and when their partners do not possess these features, they are particularly drawn to men other than their partners. As most of these studies do not find changes in sexual desire across the cycle, sexual desire per se is probably not responsible for these effects.

That's super interesting nuance. Now you may note that in the chart that I showed, intelligence wasn't considered particularly important for a shorting by most of the women in the study at their height of their ovltrary cycle. However, I want to add some additional nuance here by highlighting a study by Hazelton and Miller in two thousand and six which found that women especially value creative talent overwealth when they are ovulating and evaluating men as short term meats.

So maybe creativity more than intelligence is showing the effect. However, is showing the effect. What's more, I've personally conducted a number of studies with my colleagues suggesting that creativity is very attractive for both short term and long term meats, and when it comes to intelligence, I wouldn't just count out intelligence as sexy. In this study that I published

with my colleagues called who finds Bill Gates Sexy? Creative meat preferences as a function of cognitoibility, personality, and creative achievement, we found it really depends on the IQ and intellectual curiosity of the female. We found that women with a high IQ and with a ravenous intellectual curiosity did absolutely find intelligent men sexy for a short term affair. So

where my sapio sexual is at? What? Now? Before we leave this whole discussion today, I don't want to give you the impression that nice guys always finished last in the bedroom, because the research actually shows that nice guys don't finish last in the bedroom. Glinski and Sonnenstein did one of the largest ever studies on this topic, analyzing three thy two hundred students aged eighteen to twenty six years old who had taken part in the third wave

of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Overall, they found that men were more likely than women to report having had orgasms during sex eighty seven percent of men, compared with only forty seven percent of women. Men on average, were also more likely to enjoy giving oral sex than women were, which is interesting suggesting that men might not be as selfish in bed as stereotypes might have it.

In terms of individual differences, though, high self esteem, autonomy, and empathy were associated with greater total sexual pleasure, frequency of orgasm, enjoyment level for giving and receiving oral sex and females, whereas only empathy was associated with total sexual pleasure among the men in the study. Among men, autonomy was positively correlated to the frequency of orgasm, whereas self esteem was linked to the enjoyment of giving oral sex.

The researcher suggests that those with higher levels of empathy are more responsive to their partner's needs, and their partner is thus more responsive in return. Therefore, it seems as though nice guys may finish last where it really counts, in the bedroom. Okay, let's take a deep breath. We've covered so much so far in this series, and I know it's a lot to process. Let me take all the scientific findings and attempt to give my best advice. Let's start out with advice for the quote nice guy.

If you aren't getting the mating results you want, you may want to hold off on becoming a card carrying narcissistic psychopath. You may only need to make some minor adjustments. Here are some tips. One, dial down your eagerness, hold your horses, cowboy. Women want quality men, and quality men. Don't act desperate. It is simple supply and demand. The more a guy acts like he's in short supply, the more a women will demand him. Two. Be more playful

and interesting. You may be boring dates and scaring women away because you're too serious and anxious. Try watching some comedy before you go out to get yourself in a playful frame of mind, or take a date to a stand up comedy show. It's my preference personally. Three More you're assertive. If you are constantly being put in the quote friend zone, perhaps you are not being assertive enough about what you want. There's a difference between dominance and assertiveness.

Get out of your comfort zone by making bold, romantic gestures. They won't always work out, but at least it gives a girl a chance to see you in the way you want her to see you. If you are nervous, remember women find honesty sexy, which leads me to number four. Be authentic, honest, and direct. Don't try to be the kind of man you think women want, but play up your own unique strengths. A healthy dose of self promotion is okay. Own yourself. Women can tell when you're trying

to be something you're not. Jerks don't try to be nice guys, so why should nice guys try to be jerks? Five Get out of your head. Instead of worrying about following a set of rules that puts you too much in your own head and creates unnecessary anxiety, direct your attention to the external world. Ask really interesting questions. This relates to number six. Listen, ask a woman questions and

genuinely care about her answers. Women like to be understood and will appreciate that you care about what they have to say. Too much self focus will come across as unattractive. Women really do like to be seen and valued. Seven. Do good things for others. Smile at strangers, help granny's cross the street, volunteer at to homeless shelter, do habitat for humanity. We're in a culturally valued skill and become

really good at it. Instead of trying to manufacture attraction, work on genuinely becoming the type of man women want. Then attraction will come naturally as a result, Eat be flexible and handle rejection graciously. Honestly, I think there are aspects of the dark triad that the quote nice guy can learn without becoming a bad person. It is possible to have multiple social strategies at your disposal, one aagentic and measured by the dark triad, and one pro social,

measured with altruistic behavior, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. There certainly are times when an altruistic cooperative orientation is essential, such as when forming meaningful reciprocal relationships and developing a skill that helps humanity. And I also think there are times when you may want to adopt an agentic social strategy, such as when you want to hold your ground or your beliefs and maintain your self respect or in quickly bouncing

back from rejection. Rejection is just a normal part of the of the courtship process and the and the mating domain. It's something you're just going to have to get used to. And the good news is the more you get rejected, the more comfortable you get with rejection. This is what my friend told me. Okay, now here are some advice for women. One understand the narcissistic mindset. Narcissistics are easy

to spot and easy to avoid. Once you understand the narcissists mindset and what drives them, you realize just how predictable they really are. Beware of men who talk about themselves, name drop, or spend more time in the mirror than you do. Men who put others down, especially in feerors and strangers, and men who react too harshly to criticism and see criticism or rejection where it doesn't even exist. Finally, be on the lookout for men who act entitle to you.

That's a huge red flag. Number two slow down. Relationships with narcissists start off with a bang literally but fizzle out fast. Relationships with good guys may take more time to develop, but may ultimately be more satisfying and exciting. If you're looking for a long term relationship, don't put so much stock in your initial attraction and be open minded to guys who may not be as flashy at

first sight. Three. Assess him in multiple contexts. Sometimes extroverts can be very hard to distinguish from narcissists at first encounter. If you are attracted to a guy at first encounter, assess him in multiple contexts before getting in too deep. Four ask for a dating resume. If he has had a lot of failed relationships or has no balls because they've been cut off by a prior meat, that's not

a good sign. Five. Listen to your friends. If your friends stopped hanging out with you because they don't want to go anywhere near your new boyfriend, that's an important sign. If everyone else thinks you're dating a self absorbed narcissist, you probably are. Six. Look at where you're going to find a meat. If you frequent bars and clubs, you're more likely to encounter narcissists on the prow Avoid breeding grounds for narcissists. Seven. Give genuinely nice guys a chance.

Not quote nice guys, but really nice guys. They're out there, they exist. Stable and secure guys don't tend to wear flashy neon lights on their shirts. If a guy looks like he's genuinely interested in you and it is being nice, don't automatically assume the guy is weak. Some of the most self assured and cocky guys are actually the most insecure and the most narcissistic, and many guys with the worst quote game make for the most satisfying and exciting

relationship partners like Mike We're over here a producer. Eight. If you tend to constantly be attracted to narcissists, it might be time for you to examine, and I mean really examine why you are attracted to narcissists. If you are searching for an ambitious and exciting man who's not too nice, you're likely to be drawn to many narcissists. Also, if you're always looking for excitement rather than emotional closeness, you're more likely to be drawn to narcissists, notes psychologist W.

Keith Campbell. What narcissistic need of yours do narcissists exploit? It's really important to ask yourself that question. Understanding why you eight narcissistic men will help you make significant changes to your life. Nine. Examine why bad boys tend to be attracted to you. A body of research suggests there are certainly body language cues that are more prominent among

those vulnerable to victimization. For instance, Grayson and Stein found that potential victims differed from non victims with respect of five motion cues, longer or shorter strides, non lateral weight shifts, gestured versus postural movements and foot movement. Potential victims tended to lift their feet higher while walking. A key factor in victimization seems to be nonverbal cues of dominance for submissiveness. We don't want a victim Blaine here, but I think

knowledge is power, so can anything be done? Prison psychologist Mariso Morrow, who deals with criminals and people with psychopathic traits, notes that quote, besides one's walk, individuals can purposefully project dominance thereby potentially decreasing proceed vulnerability by increasing eye contact, decreasing the use of small body movements of the feet in hand, and increasing large body movements or changes in postural positioning. Ten. Don't let narcissists get into your head.

Narcissists are really good at exploiting people's emotional weaknesses and insecurities. If you find yourself constantly questioning yourself and feeling guilty for things your partners really should be guilty for doing themselves, this is a sign that the narcissists tactics have succeeded. Recognize this and don't let his mind games get into your head. Eleven, Get out as soon as you can. I know this can be easier than done, especially if

you're invested in some way. But if you do find yourself in a relationship with a narcissist, don't try to change him. Remember he enjoys being a narcissist. He's proud of it. Be prepared to cut off the relationship swiftly and abruptly. The more emotionally attached to get, the or it will be to leave the relationship, and the easier it will be for the narcissists to manipulate you. Twelve.

Take responsibility for your situation. As W. Keith Campbell notes, quote, understand the situation you're in does not reflect your personality, and you can change your circumstance. Responsibility is the ability to respond. I completely agree with that. I'll put on my jacket for this slide. I'm so ridiculous. Now some

advice for the bad boy. If you're tired of living the fast life, it might be time for you to dial down the signals that you're looking for a short term affair, such as sexual language, approaching every woman in sight, and work on your empathy and relationship skills. Also, you might want to try acquiring socially valuable skills that help others. If you found this episode of the Human Potential Lab interesting, how we recommend reading my book co authored with Glen Gear,

called Mating Intelligence Unleashed. A lot of the studies I mentioned in this episode are included in the book, and the book goes even deeper into the various aspects of mating intelligence. Finally, and I'm going to take off my jockeys for this, I'd like to take a step back a moment and give a human note. In reviewing this vast and complex literature, I felt like something was missing. I don't know about you, but it all feels so robotic and unhuman, as if we're all just automaton robots

choosing quote good genes or quote good providers. I know it can certainly feel that way when we're young and in the clubs and feel like the only guys who get success with women are the cocky, muscular ones. However, I believe that as we mature and move past college age and get older and more secure in who we are and what we want out of life, both men and women start to realize what really matters in life.

When choosing a partner, we start to value different things and just want to be with someone who makes us feel safe, to explore all sides of ourselves and to grow together with a lot of the research I reviewed is unfortunately conducted on college aged students, and even the research conducted on adults is focused on people choosing hypothetical scenarios. In the real world, I think we are attracted to a vibe in energy and a sense of connectedness with

another person. Now, look, I could just be fooling myself and only saying what I wish to be true, but I really do believe this to be true. I believe that the most fulfilling and meaningful relationships grow over time and often with people who get you and who you get in return. But what do you think? Leave me comments on the YouTube page and let me know what

you think. I really genuinely care. I wish you all the very best in your mating goals, and I hope you found this episode comprehensive, valuable, maybe even a little entertaining, and stay tuned for further episodes of The Human Potential Lab.