Why is it so easy to fall in love with psychopaths?

March 30, 2024

Psychopaths tend to be shown in series and movies as characters who only act in obedience to their thirst for cruelty and sadism.

They think in a cold way, they do not show empathy and often they are not only violent, but they also engage in activities considered aberrant. Definitely, they are at the antipodes of what could be considered a companion with whom to share a loving relationship .

However, people with a high degree of psychopathy who inhabit the real world they are known precisely for their ability to seduce , so that it is easy to get to feel infatuated by them. Why does this happen?

You may be interested: "Psychopathy: what happens in the mind of the psychopath?"

The manipulative nature of psychopaths

People who stand out for their level of psychopathy do not have to feel the need to kill or harm people, but there is something about them that is almost always fulfilled: they manipulate others, even without realizing it . And, in addition, they are very good at this task.

This is due to two reasons. On the one hand, psychopaths reify people , which means that they do not perceive them as beings with a mental life of their own with which they can empathize, but rather as very complex robots or characters in a videogame. This characteristic is present in different intensities according to the psychopath: some of them totally reify others, while others only do so to a degree significantly greater than the average of the population.

On the other hand, the reification it does not feel any compunction when lying and manipulating . The only concern at the time of doing it will be that it is not discovered that something is being done badly seen socially, but beyond this there will be hardly any moral limitations that make the behavior of the psychopath that manipulates or lies seem insecure because of an internal struggle .

In other words, in people with a high degree of psychopathy, lies can flow like water, and saying something that is not true can end up with the same moral challenges as snapping fingers.

This makes psychopaths have a wide range of performance when it comes to pretending something they are not, which means that they have more advantages when it comes to seducing and get someone to fall in love with them by cheating . All this, in addition, without the need to train in lies.

Detecting the weaknesses of others

In addition to having the ability to offer a totally unreal face of themselves, psychopaths have another ace up their sleeve when it comes to navigating the world of love relationships by cheating: they are very skilled at detecting psychological vulnerabilities in others .

That means that this class of people have a surprising capacity to know what kind of actions and initiatives can be appreciated by someone, either due to certain shortcomings or fears and insecurities.

For example, an investigation found that people who scored high on a psychopathy scale were able to intuitively detect who had been sexually abused in the past ... just by looking at how they walked . This did not happen in people who did not obtain significantly high levels in that test.

In this way, psychopaths start with a kind of privileged information about the weaknesses of others that they can use for their own benefit by offering elements that others need and rarely find in other potential partners. Although it sounds cruel, using intimate information to be more desirable can be something that works when seducing.

Hyphrophilia

So far we have seen the seductive potential that psychopaths are able to offer through a mask that hides their propensity for manipulation; that is, in cases where the couple is not fully aware of the psychological peculiarities of their lover.

However, even in cases in which the person with a high degree of psychopathy has become accustomed to acting violently, it is possible to be attracted to this fact. When aggressiveness is rationally articulated by pursuing an end, it can appear hyphrophilia, which is the sexual attraction for violent people willing to commit crimes .

Especially if the person with psychopathic traits is male, the fit between this aggressiveness and male gender roles contributes to this tendency to harm others to be seen as an expression of manhood and autonomy.

However, hyphrophilia is very rare and certainly does not occur in all people.That does not mean, however, that certain degrees of hostility and aggressiveness can not be used to find a partner.

The dark thriad and love

Even if aggressiveness and hostility do not amount to crimes, for many people they may be more attractive than peacefulness; in fact, a concept known as dark thriad, which has often been related to a pattern of sexual preference by narcissistic, manipulative men with a tendency to psychopathy.

Why does this happen? It is difficult to find a rational logic beyond the possibility that certain people may be predisposed to feel attracted by extremely individualistic people, whose paradigm is the psychopaths .

From an evolutionary perspective, it is reasonable to assume that the genes of some individuals predispose them to seek the company of this class of personalities, since in certain contexts having offspring with people of this class can increase the chances of transmitting the genes successfully.