Emophilia is a trait characterized by falling in love fast, easily, & often; is associated with ignoring red flags and rushing into relationships; the Dark Triad personality traits are interpersonally toxic but considered attractive to some

Emophilia and other predictors of attraction to individuals with Dark Triad traits. Jacqueline Lechuga, Daniel N. Jones. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 168, 1 January 2021, 110318. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110318

Highlights
• Emophilia is a trait characterized by falling in love fast, easily, and often.
• Emophilia is associated with ignoring red flags and rushing into relationships.
• The Dark Triad personality traits are interpersonally toxic but considered attractive to some.
• Emophilia was the best predictor of attraction to individuals high in Dark Triad traits.

Abstract: The current research investigated the association between different relationship orientations (e.g., insecure attachment, sociosexuality, emophilia) and attraction to individuals high in different Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism). Although research has focused on general attraction to antisocial partners, less attention has been paid to traits that affect that attraction. One understudied construct in predicting relationship-relevant attraction is emophilia, which is the tendency to fall in love fast and often. Across two studies (N = 452), we found that emophilia had a strong and unique relationship with attraction to individuals high in dark personality traits. In Study 1, participants completed an assessment of the Dark Triad as they would want their “ideal romantic partner” to complete it. Participants in Study 2 rated the attractiveness of different dating profiles generated by people who varied in the Dark Triad. Participants in both studies filled out self-assessments of emophilia, sociosexuality, and attachment styles. Across both studies, people high in emophilia were the most attracted to any target, including targets high in the Dark Triad traits, even when controlling for other relationship-relevant traits. The findings have implications for relationship research, personality research, and potential risk factors for becoming involved with antisocial partners.

Keywords: AttractionDark TriadAttachment stylesEmophiliaSociosexualityMatingRelationships

6. General discussion

In two different studies, the current research investigated the association between relationship variables (emophilia, sociosexuality, attachment styles) and attraction to the different Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism). Of interest was emophilia, the tendency to fall in love fast and often. We hypothesized that emophilia would correlate with attraction to the different Dark Triad traits. In Study 1, participants who scored higher in emophilia, avoidant attachment, and sociosexuality reported increased preference for “ideal romantic partners” who scored higher in the different Dark Triad traits. However, in Study 2, using mock dating profiles, only emophilia was significantly associated with generalized attraction. In particular, individuals high in emophilia reported higher attraction to all profiles, regardless of the nature of the profile or who wrote it. In contrast, sociosexuality was associated with only the narcissistic profile.

Previous research has suggested that individuals high in the different Dark Triad traits are attractive (Carter et al., 2014; Grosz et al., 2015), especially men (Jonason et al., 2009). However, these findings may largely depend on individual differences in different relationship orientations. Among these individual differences, emophilia emerged as the strongest predictor of attraction to ideal partners high in the different Dark Triad traits, and attraction to dating profiles in a non-discriminating fashion. Thus, they recorded a generalized attraction to others, consistent with the construct definition of emophilia (e.g., Jones, 2015).

7. Implications

Attraction to Dark Triad traits is not universal among women or men. Instead, certain individuals find the characteristics and presentation of the Dark Triad traits attractive. Specifically, individuals high in different Dark Triad traits may be especially appealing to people high in emophilia. Although, for some, there may be an initial attraction to Dark Triad individuals, people high in any of the Dark Triad traits struggle with retaining partners (e.g., Webster et al., 2016). Thus, future research should examine how long individuals high in emophilia actually stay in a relationship with individuals high in different Dark Triad traits. The data also speak to the possibility that individuals high in emophilia may have a type of reproductive strategy that lends itself to short-term mating. Thus, future research should examine the relationship between emophilia and life history strategy (Figueredo, Vásquez, et al., 2006). Future research should also determine mechanism. It could be that individuals high in emophilia are attracted to dark personality partners. However, it could also be that individuals high in emophilia ignore the red flags that might indicate a partner could be problematic in the future.

8. Limitations and future directions

There are also limitations to the present research. For example, all participants were obtained from Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Objections to the usage of Amazon's Mechanical Turk often include a lack of representation of the general population (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014), repeated participation of workers (Kees et al., 2017), and workers' motivation to participate for monetary compensation (Kees et al., 2017). However, it is worth noting that our research included attention checks. Further, some workers participate in studies for an innate interest in the study (Kees et al., 2017), and overall data collected from Amazon's Mechanical Turk has demonstrated to be of good quality (Hauser & Schwarz, 2016; Kees et al., 2017; Paolacci & Chandler, 2014). Another limitation is the absence of actor-partner data. Specifically, we did not study self and other ratings of individuals who are in relationships. Additionally, most of our participants were not single. However, research has found that individuals can have ideal conceptualizations of a romantic partner's personality that is uncorrelated with their actual romantic partner. Further, the best predictor of actual relationship pair-bonding is mate quality, which includes physical and non-physical traits (Figueredo, Vásquez, et al., 2006). Therefore, individuals can still gauge the attractiveness of individuals outside of a relationship.

Another limitation to consider is the usage of mock profiles to investigate attraction to the Dark Triad. Although vignettes have previously been used successfully to assess attraction to the Dark Triad (Carter et al., 2014; Qureshi et al., 2016; Rauthmann & Kolar, 2013), it is possible that these reported preferences may not replicate on actual choices (Figueredo, Vásquez, et al., 2006; Jauk et al., 2016; Eastwick et al., 2011). Further, the differences among the profiles were subtle. For example, narcissistic interests were: “I like the outdoors, cycling, MMA, hotrods, tattoos, swimming, music shows, and roller derby. Pretty much anything fun.” These interests reflected sensation seeking and social visibility, which are consistent with narcissism. Further, these interests differed from low Dark Triad interests, which were: “Music, photography, hiking, cycling, traveling, history, movies, learning, reading, computers, and gadgets.” Nevertheless, the subtle nature of these differences likely attenuated the ability to make conclusions about attraction specifically to individuals high in different Dark Triad traits. However, the attraction observed to all four profiles among those high in emophilia, does support further validity of the construct of emophilia and the assessment. Future research should focus on a more naturalistic study design to investigate attraction for the Dark Triad.

Although we do not have any theory as to why male participants high in emophilia would respond differently, one potential limitation was the focus on women's attraction to Dark Triad profiles in men. Just as there are gender differences in Dark Triad scores (Jonason et al., 2009), there are gender differences in emophilia worth noting. Specifically, men are higher on emophilia than are women, and among men, emophilia has a higher correlation with anxious attachment (Jones, 2017). Nevertheless, we focused on women's potential attraction to Dark Triad traits in men in Study 2 because that has been the traditional focus of research on Dark Triad and mate attraction (e.g., Brewer et al., 2018; Carter et al., 2014; Marcinkowska et al., 2015; Marcinkowska et al., 2016; Qureshi et al., 2016). Further, Dark Triad traits also mediate the relationship between gender and short-term mating efforts (Jonason et al., 2009). Nevertheless, future research should delve deeper into the potential gender differences within emophilia. Finally, future research should focus on a more naturalistic study design to investigate attraction for the Dark Triad.

Future research should also examine whether emophilia is associated with attraction to other problematic personality constructs such as borderline personality or vulnerable narcissism (Miller et al., 2010). It may be the case that the charm, risk-taking, and agentic nature of individuals high in the different Dark Triad traits is uniquely attractive to individuals high in emophilia. It may also be the case that the vulnerable nature of traits such as borderline personality is also attractive to those high in emophilia. At the very least, the presence of these traits may not interfere with emophilia-based attraction. Future research should also examine emophilia-based attraction to everyday traits such as extraversion and openness to experience. Finally, research should examine the mechanisms behind emophilia-based Dark Triad attraction. For example, although superficial charm is a likely candidate, this needs to be more directly tested.

Although not assessed in the current study, vulnerable traits such as borderline personality may also be associated with increased attraction to different Dark Triad traits. Because emophilia and borderline personality have a positive correlation (i.e., r = 0.17–0.22; Jones, 2011a), there may be similar but distinct processes driving the attraction of individuals with borderline characteristics to individuals high in different Dark Triad traits.