Adaptiveness of dark personalities: psychopathy and sadism have opposite associations with fertility.

ABSTRACT: Analyzing the links between behavioral traits and fertility is a pivotal step toward understanding their current adaptiveness and the potential regimes of natural selection acting upon them. In this study, we examined associations between the Dark Tetrad traits-psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism-and two fertility indicators: number of children and age of first reproduction, in a representative probabilistic sample of Croatian citizens (N = 690). Regression analyses showed that psychopathy positively predicted the number of children and negatively predicted age of first reproduction; the opposite pattern was observed for sadism. Mediation analysis further revealed that age of first reproduction mediated the relationship between sadism and number of children, while

SUBMITTER: Međedovic J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12454322 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature