A recent study suggests that people with antagonistic personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy, tend to report higher levels of problematic sexual behavior and momentary sexual urges. However, these associations are relatively small, indicating that personality is just one piece of a much larger psychological puzzle. The research was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
Problematic sexual behavior refers to patterns of sexual thoughts or actions that feel difficult to control and cause negative consequences in a person’s life. Rather than classifying this as a formal addiction, psychologists often view it on a spectrum of severity. Sexual activity can play a positive role in adult well-being and act as a healthy way to cope with life’s challenges. However, when a person repeatedly uses sexual behavior as their primary method to manage difficult emotions, it has the potential to become an unhealthy coping mechanism.
To better understand who might be most prone to these patterns, researchers looked at the “Dark Triad” of personality. This group of antagonistic traits includes Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Machiavellianism involves a tendency to be manipulative and strategic, usually to exploit others for personal gain. Narcissism is characterized by a sense of grandiosity, perceived superiority, and a strong sense of entitlement. Psychopathy involves emotional detachment, low empathy, and poor impulse control.
Past evidence indicates that people scoring higher on these traits often struggle with regulating their emotions and managing stress. Because problematic sexual behavior is frequently linked to poor emotional control, scientists wanted to see if these antagonistic traits correlated with a higher tendency to rely on sex for stress relief. They also aimed to test whether experiencing acute emotional stress would amplify momentary sexual urges.
“Problematic sexual behavior is widely discussed and debated, but we still do not fully understand what drives it,” said Emanuele Fino, corresponding author and an assistant professor at Queen’s University Belfast. “We wanted to examine whether certain personality traits are linked to difficulties controlling sexual thoughts or behaviors, whether emotional stress strengthens these links, and whether the patterns differ between men and women.”
To explore these questions, the authors conducted two separate studies using undergraduate students in Romania. In the first study, 418 participants completed online questionnaires measuring their personality traits and their levels of problematic sexual behavior over the past year. The sample included 213 women and 202 men, with an average age of 22. The researchers used established psychological scales to measure the three dark personality traits, along with a standardized questionnaire to capture frequency-based indicators of dysregulated sexual behavior.
The findings from the first study suggested slight differences between men and women in how these traits related to sexual behavior. Among women, higher scores in all three traits, including Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, were associated with more problematic sexual behavior. Among men, only psychopathic traits were associated with these behaviors. The associations involving Machiavellianism and narcissism in men were not statistically significant.
“People with higher levels of antagonistic traits, such as callousness, manipulation and self-centeredness, tended to report more problematic sexual thoughts and behaviors,” Fino told PsyPost. “Also, in one of our studies, psychopathic traits were the only traits significantly linked to problematic sexual behavior among men, specifically, which may reflect characteristics such as impulsivity, sensation-seeking or reduced empathy.”
It is important to note that the effect sizes were quite small across the board. In statistics, shared variance refers to how much of the variation in one trait can be explained by another. The dark traits accounted for only about 3 to 7 percent of the shared variance in problematic sexual behavior scores among women. For men, psychopathic traits accounted for about 6 percent of the variance.
This means that over 90 percent of the variation in this behavior is explained by factors outside of these personality traits. “The links were statistically significant but fairly small,” Fino explained. “Human behavior is complex, and no single personality trait is likely to explain it fully. It is therefore more accurate to say that these traits may contribute slightly to someone’s likelihood of experiencing difficulties, alongside many other factors.”
The second study involved a separate group of 455 undergraduate students, including 249 women and 206 men, with an average age of 22. This time, the researchers focused on momentary sexual preoccupations and urges rather than behavior over the past year. They also added an experimental element to see how acute stress influenced these momentary urges. Half of the participants were asked to vividly recall and write about a highly distressing childhood memory to induce emotional stress, while the other half completed a neutral control task.
Following the memory task, the researchers measured the participants’ current sexual urges, dark personality traits, and anxiety levels. They adjusted the statistical models to account for age and general trait anxiety. Trait anxiety refers to a person’s baseline tendency to feel anxious, while state anxiety refers to temporary feelings of worry in the moment.
The stress manipulation worked as intended, with participants in the distressing memory group reporting higher state anxiety than the control group. Despite this increase in anxiety, the induced stress did not change the relationship between the dark traits and momentary sexual urges. “We expected emotional stress to strengthen the link between personality and sexual urges, but it did not,” Fino said.
“Our stress task increased anxiety, so the task worked, but it did not change the relationship between personality and urges,” Fino continued. “Longer-term or everyday stress may be more relevant for problematic sexual behavior than brief, experimentally induced distress.” Gender also did not alter this relationship in the second study, contrasting slightly with the findings of the first study.
When looking at basic correlations, all three dark traits were linked to higher momentary sexual urges in both men and women. Again, the associations were small, with the traits explaining about 3 to 6 percent of the variation in momentary urges. The researchers then analyzed all three traits together in a single statistical model to see which one was the strongest predictor. When grouped this way, no individual trait uniquely predicted the sexual urges.
To make sense of this, the researchers used a technique called structural equation modeling, which allows scientists to look at the mathematical overlap of traits. They found that a general antagonistic personality style, shared across all three traits, was linked to the sexual urges. Psychopathic traits were the strongest indicator of this shared antagonistic dimension. This suggests that a broad tendency toward emotional callousness and disinhibition might be driving the association, rather than the specific individual features of narcissism or Machiavellianism alone.
These findings do not indicate that certain personality types are destined to develop sexual compulsions. “Our findings do not mean that people with certain traits are destined to develop problematic sexual behavior, nor can these traits predict what any individual will do,” Fino cautioned. “These traits do not determine a specific person’s behavior and should not be used to judge or label individuals. They are only one part of a much larger picture.”
The data is also correlational, meaning it cannot determine whether dark personality traits directly cause problematic sexual behavior. The study relied exclusively on undergraduate university students, which introduces some limits to the research. “We studied university students, not people diagnosed with personality disorders or compulsive sexual behavior, so the findings should not automatically be generalized to clinical populations,” Fino stated.
Young adulthood is a period of active sexual exploration and identity development, which restricts how well the conclusions apply to older adults. Additionally, the stress experiment specifically used childhood memories to induce distress. This type of emotional recall might not mirror the everyday stressors that typically trigger sexual urges in the real world.
Future research would benefit from tracking participants over longer periods to see how personality and sexual behavior influence one another over time.
“We want to understand what connects personality to behavior,” Fino stated. “Factors such as impulsivity, emotion regulation, trauma as well as social and cultural contexts may help explain why some people experience these difficulties while others do not. Observing people over time will also help us understand how these patterns develop.”
“We tested our ideas in two separate groups using different approaches, which strengthens the overall evidence,” Fino concluded. “More broadly, we hope the study supports a balanced conversation. Overall, problematic sexual behavior is complex and cannot be explained by one personality trait alone or one brief stressful experience.”
The study, “Investigating the relationship between antagonistic personality traits and problematic sexual behaviour: The role of gender and emotional stress,” was authored by Simona A. Popușoi, Cara Finn, Eduard Ionut Apetrei, Cian Leppard, Andrei C. Holman, Nadja Heym, and Emanuele Fino.