Wolves dress in the clothing of bold sheep: In a romantic partner, boldness is perceived sooner than meanness or disinhibition

ABSTRACT

Mount Royal students (n= 30) and Reddit users (n= 30) considered one romantic partner whom they perceived as bold, mean, and/or disinhibited. Participants provided ratings for both their initial and ultimate perceptions of the person using an adapted version of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (Patrick, 2018). Participants also stated how long it took for the ultimate perception of each scale characteristic to emerge. The data were filtered so only items scored as “Somewhat true” or “True” on the ultimate ratings were analyzed. For those items, bold characteristics were initially rated highest (Mdn = 2.28 on a 0-3scale) and most often reported as being perceived immediately. In contrast, disinhibited characteristics (Mdn = 1.70) and mean characteristics (Mdn = 1.42) had lower initial ratings and were most often reported as taking months to perceive. These findings suggest a way to reconcile the claim that psychopaths are superficially charming with evidence from the scientific literature suggesting psychopathy is unattractive.

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