If you feel like you’re a drama magnet, always in relationships with people who lie, manipulate, or belittle, you’re not alone. New research has looked at these very benevolent profiles which follow a series of toxic partnerswithout understanding what’s wrong with their love radar.
Austrian researchers followed real speed-dating evenings to test a specific hypothesis…
Nearly 1,500 speed dating sessions to understand who says yes to whom
In May 2023, 128 young adults, with an average age of 23.9 years, participated in six speed-dating sessions in Innsbruck, Austria, resulting in 1,429 three-minute heterosexual dates. After each meeting, everyone indicated whether they wanted to see the person again, consider a short relationship or a long relationship, which made it possible to measure who said yes, and to whom.
Before the meetings, participants completed questionnaires measuring the
black tetrad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism of everyday life) and the
light triad : faith in humanity, humanism, Kantianism, that is, a tendency to see others as fundamentally good and to treat them with honesty rather than as means.
When kindness becomes a filter with holes in the face of manipulators
Analyzes show that Machiavellianism and
sadism generally reduce success in speed dating: these profiles are less chosen for short stories as for serious relationships. For a large number of people, radar therefore works. But as soon as there is a very “luminous” person opposite, this almost automatic rejection disappears.
The researcher summarizes: “Based on our results, there does not appear to be any specific attraction between light and dark personalities. On the contrary, individuals with bright personalities are more likely to trust people who are generally rejected by others“, explained Jana Sophie Kesenheimer, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Innsbruck and author of the study, in an interview with PsyPost.
Highly empathetic people therefore do not find toxic profiles more attractive than others, they simply have more difficulty dismissing them on the first date. Behind this slight drop in selectivity could hide a concrete explanation for the complicated loves of empathetic people.
Empathy, faith in humanity… But not the right romantic warning signs
Researchers do not observe any special magnetism between bright and dark personalities: very Machiavellian or sadistic profiles do not particularly seek empathetic partners, and neither does the reverse. The difference mainly lies in the tendency of the former to inspire distrust, while the latter spontaneously grant the benefit of the doubt.
For Jana Sophie Kesenheimer and her team, these results remain modest: personality only explains part of our romantic choices, but letting the first warning signals go by can open up a toxic relationship made of manipulation, gaslighting or repeated infidelity, especially when we firmly believe in the goodness of others.