{"id":62427,"date":"2019-11-28T15:10:14","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T20:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=62427"},"modified":"2019-11-28T16:31:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T21:31:08","slug":"research-on-dating-psychopaths-throws-student-into-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2019\/11\/research-on-dating-psychopaths-throws-student-into-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Research on dating psychopaths throws student into spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Kristopher Brazil, a PhD student in Brock University’s Department of Child and Youth Studies, answered an interview request from\u00a0PsyPost<\/a>\u00a0about a recent study he conducted with fellow researcher Adelle Forth of Carleton University, he didn\u2019t know what he was in for.<\/p>\n

But the research was so topical and intriguing that news of the study \u2014 which appeared in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science<\/em><\/a> in September and was Brazil\u2019s first publication in a peer-reviewed journal \u2014 spread like wildfire. It was featured on Psychology Today<\/a>\u00a0and in newspapers like the New York Post<\/a> and Britain\u2019s The Daily Mail<\/a>, as well as on websites like Reddit.<\/p>\n

The study people found so fascinating examined how women rate the attractiveness of men in dating encounters who vary on psychopathic traits.<\/p>\n

Young women were asked to watch video recordings of young men interacting with a woman and then rate the men\u2019s dating desirability. The men had previously completed an assessment of psychopathic traits, allowing researchers to see patterns in desirability ratings and psychopathic traits.<\/p>\n

The results showed that the men with more psychopathic traits were rated as more desirable. Further, when women compared two equally attractive men, the one with more psychopathic traits was rated higher in direct comparison with the other man.<\/p>\n

Brazil says he and Forth began the study with an interest in \u201cfurther understanding the enigmatic and positive effect that some research shows men with psychopathic traits can have in gaining favourable impressions, especially in romantic contexts, despite the eventual negative effect they have on their significant others.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tendency that garners a lot of interest, which may explain some of the popular interest in this scientific research.<\/p>\n

But, as Brazil points out, the research also \u201chelps give context to why people get into these relationships in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that women, or people generally, are getting into these relationships knowing that the person shows psychopathic tendencies,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt rather seems that psychopathic individuals are good at displaying exactly what is attractive to others in a romantic context \u2014 things like confidence, making eye contact, putting the other person at ease and seeming sincere and interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Tony Volk in the Department of Child and Youth Studies says it’s “rewarding to see a creative hypothesis like Kristopher’s catching the attention of a broader audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Volk, who is Brazil\u2019s supervisor, notes that \u201cit also speaks to the public demand for understanding antisocial behavior so that we can more effectively prevent it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The findings have been of interest not only to the media, but to individuals who have first-hand experience with the study\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have had people from around the world emailing me to give their own personal stories related to the research topic,\u201d says Brazil. \u201cIt\u2019s been nice hearing from real people who feel like they have a stake in this research being conducted.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he’s also heard from people who criticized aspects of the study \u2014 feedback he was eager to review and consider.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving thought deeply about my own research and criticizing it harshly myself, I was able to empathize with people\u2019s concerns,” says Brazil. “This allowed me to appreciate and respond to some of those issues and concerns genuinely without compromising the integrity of the research.”<\/p>\n

One of the takeaways from having his research go viral, he says, was thinking deeply about his work \u2014 a lesson he encourages others to take note of.<\/p>\n

“Get into the nitty gritty details of your study rationale, what\u2019s missing from it, and other issues that still need to be resolved with more thinking and research,\u201d says Brazil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When PhD student Kristopher Brazil answered an interview request about a recent study he conducted with a fellow researcher from Carleton University, he didn\u2019t know what he was in for.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":62428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,4,38],"tags":[8493,4640,8485,607,522,8364],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62427"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62433,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62427\/revisions\/62433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}