Did the so-called “Bad Boy” appeal to Women? And did Women always act against their wishes?
Take a look at them. All nice guys. They’ll finish last. Nice guys. Finish last.
In the relationship between men and women, besides the dualistic idea about alpha-beta males, there are other dualistic ideas about good boys and bad boys. It carries the belief that a good guy with so-called good personality traits such as being easy going, considerate, and honest will fail to find a relationship, while bad boys with supposedly bad traits like manipulation, selfishness, and carelessness will succeed.
Going further, many groups of people believe that women really do not know what they need and their words are not very reliable, because even though women say they like good guys, in reality, they choose bad guys. Therefore, the beliefs of these groups unintentionally undermine the value of a good guy and lower the reliability of women’s words (also perception, opinion, and thinking).
This article will show what is the truth and what is the delusion surrounding these ideas.
1. Where does the phrase “Nice guys finish last” come from?
The idea of looking down on the “good boy” value has become so popular that there is a separate saying for it: “Nice guys finish last”, the popularity of this saying is not trivial, Google returns 433,000 results in a few seconds and entertainment like YouTuber Nigahiga has put this quote in a Youtube MV back in 2011.
After much investigation, we found that this statement originated in the sports field, instead of the field of courtship as it is now commonly used. The author of it is American baseball coach Leo Durocher with the original quote: “Take a look at them. All nice guys. They’ll finish last. Nice guys. Finish last.”
The context of this quote is on July 6, 1946 when Durocher was coaching the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, his line directed at rival New York Giants. The reason that Durocher calls his opponent a nice guy is because he is famous for his way of coaching players to play fiercely and drastically, generally considered to be the opposite of “nice” (maybe understood in sports with the meaning of “gentle”). This statement was quickly grabbed by journalists with the headline “Nice guys finish last” and began to spread from there.
As such, we can see that this statement stems from a coach’s baseball prediction. That prediction was just a momentary improvisation for the press, without any scientific basis from the speaker and at the time it was said. Only later, when the saying became too common in the relationship between men and women, did scientists begin to step in to clarify its correctness in this relationship.
2. Do women really think one way, act another?
There have been many studies showing that traits that are perceived as tied to good guys like altruism are advantages for building both short and long-term relationships with women, according to research published in 2010 by Pat. Barclay [2]. The 1999 study by Burger and Cosby revealed that being sensitive and easy-going is the character a woman wants in a partner, while dominance and rigor are not, as we have shown in the article about alpha males [3]. However, the above studies are still limited when there is no mechanism to limit social-desirability bias, it is the tendency of the respondents to answer in the direction of being recognized by society as good instead of according to his wishes.
In 2003, Urbaniak and Kilmann [4] conducted a new study using a number of techniques to limit social inclusion biases such as the nominative technique, in which respondents were consulted about behaviors that apply to others rather than themselves, using free responses instead of just answering tests and dissecting the relationships that women surveyed wanted: marital partner, long-term lover, pure friend, sexual partner, one-night partner.
The experiment is as follows, the person surveyed was shown a dating game scenario, in which Susan is the girl who is choosing a lover between two boys, Michael and Todd. Michael is the standard character of the experiment and has only one description, Todd will have three different descriptions in 3 situations. The women surveyed will read 3 scenarios and help Susan to choose the most worthy guy.
The script for the conversations goes as follows:
SUSAN: What is “real man”? Are you in that group?
MICHAEL: Men are really calm people. They do not let people bother them. They are confident, tough, always keep a positive attitude. They are also adept at kissing. Surely I belong to that group.
(Scenario 1 — Todd-good) TODD: A real man is sensitive to his feelings and his partner. They are kind and considerate and do not pursue the male dominant role model. They also need to be proficient in bed and focus on their lover’s pleasure first. Surely I belong to that group.
(Scenario 2 — Todd-neutral) TODD: Real men know what they want and know how to get what they want. They work hard and play hard, they’re kind to the woman they love. They are also adept on the sheets. Surely I belong to that group.
(Scenario 3 — Todd-bad) TODD: A real man knows what he wants and knows how to get what he wants. They know who they are, but they always make other people curious and hold them in high regard, they do not pursue the softie role model. They also need to be adept in bed and tell their partner what they want. Surely I belong to that group.
First, the team analyzed when survey participants were asked to help Susan. The results of choosing the Todd pattern in relation to Michael were: 81% chose Todd-good, 33% chose Todd-neutral, 7% chose Todd-neutral *.
* [100% divided equally between Michael and Todd in general. For example, in the scenario with Todd-bad, only 7% chose Todd but the remaining 93% chose Michael; in the Todd-good scenario, Michael is no longer appealing].
The research team then asked the women to choose Todd’s model for themselves (still out of correlation with Michael), the results were: 69% chose Todd-good, 33% chose Todd-neutral, 7% chose Todd-bad.
Initially, we see that although the data has a slight change, the ranking remains the same. The most popular role model is Todd-good, then Todd-neutral, and finally Todd-bad. This previous study shows that women’s preferences are still similar to many previous studies, but it further shows that women’s behavior is similar to their preferences.
Next to multiple-choice questions about 5 types of relationships, answered on a 7-point Likert scale, the results showed that with 4 relationships: marriage partner, long-term lover, pure friend, partner sex, the results showed Todd-good was first, Todd-neutral was second, Todd-bad was last. Specifically, in those 4 relationships, Todd-good is rated 5–6 points, Todd-neutral 3–4 points, Todd-bad 1–3 points. Only in the 5th relationship: one-night partner, Todd-neutral comes first with 4 points, Todd-good and Todd-bad share the second with 3 points.
In a one-night relationship, Todd-neutral, which is a little less good, has the upper hand, and Todd-bad has enough advantage to be on par with Todd-good. Here we continue to see this study giving quite similar results to many studies before claiming that bad boys have the advantage of purely sexual short-term relationships (which we will discuss in the next part of this article)
At the same time, we also see that women really understand what they need in the relationship and that with each relationship their target preference will change, not like the myth that women don’t know what they really want and that they think one way, act another.
Finally, when we rate each Todd model with 7 personalities (kind, agitated, intelligent, easy-going, assertive, sincere, funny), we have the Todd-good result is at the top of: kind, intelligent, sincere; Todd-neutral is at the top of: agitated, easygoing, assertive, funny; Todd-bad is not at the top of any personality.
At this point, we understand that when separating each model’s personality, women understand that each model has its own advantages and disadvantages. Importantly, however, the majority of women still decide to prioritize Todd-good as their partner in four out of five relationships, and especially when comparing Todd-good with Todd-bad, the advantage is completely in favor of Todd-good, because Todd-bad doesn’t rank higher than Todd-good in any aspect.
In addition, the second experiment by Urbaniak and Kilmann, which surveyed 194 women, around the issue of how looks and kindness affect the choice of partners, this experiment is still based on the method of the previous experiment. The result is, in short, even if Michael has the upper hand in appearance, most women still prefer Todd-good.
3. What is the truth in the belief that bad boys attract women?
First of all, it is necessary to define what “attraction” means here. If it means that bad boys possess the ideal role model that women desire, then no, because a lot of researches we have presented above does not support this claim. If that means bad guys have more sex partners than good guys, then that’s right.
According to a series of studies by a group of four researchers, people with the dark triad: narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism tend to their tendency to prefer short-term mating and to take advantage of sexual partners (2009 study) [5], their criteria for choosing a mating partner are also very low (2011) [6], they also tend to have a secret relationship with other person’s sexual partners (2010) [7].
So we already know that good boys and bad boys stay in two different “territories”: a long-term relationship with monopoly sex, and a short-term relationship with polyamorous sex. Besides, what types of women tend to enter into short-term relationships with bad boys? According to a 2018 study by Árpád Csathó and Béla Birkás, young women with an unpredictable, lacking caring, and abused childhood, who were forced into maturity early are more likely to seek quick, short-term, and toxic relationships[8]. This is the “domain” of bad boys.
In general, due to the differences in personality and lifestyle between the bad boys and the good boys, bad boys tend to have more sex partners. On the other hand, due to bad boys’ low standards of mating characteristics, this gives the impression to this group of people that women are silly creatures and are easily exploited. It is also understandable that many girls have suffered from bad boys when we know that the characteristics of a bad boy group are a preference for short-term mating and a lack of long-term bonding with their partners.
Despite these genetic advantages of mating and passing their genes, we still see that the bad boy model, with its dark trio, is not socially supported, and not replicated in terms of evolution. Game theory can give us the answer to this. In Richard Dawkins’ 1986 documentary “Nice Guys Finish First” [9], he relied on the tit-for-tat strategy of the prisoner dilemma to conclude that evolution favors Cooperative behavior instead of selfishness because cooperation brings the highest profit for everyone.
In general, due to the differences in personality and lifestyle between the bad boys and the good boys, bad boys tend to have more sex partners. On the other hand, due to bad boys’ low standards of mating characteristics, this gives the impression to this group of people that women are silly creatures and are easily exploited. It is also understandable that many girls have suffered from bad boys when we know that the characteristics of a bad boy group are a preference for short-term mating and a lack of long-term bonding with their partners.
Despite these genetic advantages of mating and passing their genes, we still see that the bad boy model, with its dark trio, is not socially supported, and not replicated in terms of evolution. Game theory can give us the answer to this. In Richard Dawkins’ 1986 documentary “Nice Guys Finish First” [9], he relied on the tit-for-tat strategy of the prisoner’s dilemma to conclude that evolution favors cooperative behavior instead of selfishness because cooperation brings the highest profit for everyone.
The prisoner’s dilemma: There are 2 criminals locked up separately for interrogation. Knowing that if both of them are silent, each man will be imprisoned for 2 years, if both accuse each other, each man will be sentenced to prison for 5 years, if one is silent, and the other accuses, the silent one gets 10 years, and the snitch will get released immediately.
Here silence is considered an act of cooperation, denunciation is an act of selfishness. If only played once, the best option for 2 criminals is always to denounce each other (acting selfishly), but if played multiple times, they will gradually learn to trust each other to silence (cooperate). And cooperation is the best strategy for them (both in prison for the least number of years).
In short, according to Richard Dawkins, there are four conditions for the cooperation strategy to really work and be operated in society: Unless provoked, players are always cooperative; If provoked, the player will retaliate; The player has a higher tolerance will continue to cooperate when the provocation has stopped; The players are allowed to play multiple times. In our species’ 300,000-year-old history, the game has been played extremely many times and selfishness will cause a lot of damage, as well as cooperation will bring a huge advantage. And the current cooperative society is a testament to it. Don’t forget that almost all other species have very limited trust with individuals (regardless of the same or different species) when they first meet, but humans do, sometimes even blindly, which means humanity and human society have learned this lesson after hundreds of thousands of years of coexistence.
And finally, we need a little bit of sophistication to figure out what the real good guys are and the bad guys that pretend to be good guys. A person with the expression of a good guy doesn’t necessarily have a good nature. Acting kindness out of kindness towards women will be very different from acts of kindness stemming from the desire to dominate and mate with them. Just as the act of always giving is not good, it is necessary to know how to retaliate before making other individuals cooperate, thereby creating benefits for all.
But anyway, good guys and their unique traits such as altruism, cooperation, and easy-going are always the core values to create civilization, and long-term relationships are still needed for human society, which is in need of cooperation. Characteristics such as selfishness, narcissism, and deviousness, though possessing advantages for an individual, are not good for society, especially when such personality causes pain for others. Short-term relationships and mass mating have not been the priority factors for civilization, at least for now.
The relatively stable existence of a minority of bad boys (or bad people in general) is a complex social phenomenon, but from an evolutionary point of view, it can be seen as a strategy to exploit loopholes of other strategies and certain gaps in society. We mentioned this in our article on the ‘rock, paper, scissors’ tactic, many species (such as some lizards and chimpanzees), always exist a group of sneaky individuals mating with other’s partners (especially those belonging to dominant ones with many partners) simply because they can do so without spending too much effort (of course after considering risks it is not effective than other strategies).
The existence of a bad boy in human society also has a bit of similarity, because even if that is not the general standard of society, just having an enough “market share” of minority partners is suitable to form a small group of bad boys exploiting it. The existence of a certain group, especially minority groups, is sometimes so obvious that it is not too surprising, especially when social contexts (education, economics, politics, culture) are still incomplete as they are today.
But pursuing, targeting, and paying too much attention to a minority is certainly not a wise behavior, even from a mathematical perspective. People are sometimes obscured by their own naive concerns. The truth is that when you look at the generation before it, you will see these bad boys had very little presence, whether it be your grandparents, parents, or older siblings. The truth about the attraction of “Nice guys finish last” is because it’s absurd and counterintuitive, contrary to what is common. The truth is that bad boys, or strategic in their short-term relationship, are just a weak minority resisting a society filled with kind people and enduring relationships.
In truth, we wrote this article not to preach some ethical lessons about how to behave and how to live, or to prevent someone from becoming bad boys, or to prevent someone from loving them. We don’t really care. It’s just that if you’re going to be a bad boy or care about it, understand that this is a weak, minority, and niche strategy, nothing magical or special. Everything is clearly present through the numbers mentioned above.
And most importantly, don’t put words in women’s mouths, and delude yourself about what they like and don’t like.
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References:
[1] “‘Nice Guys Finish Last’ — Phrase Meaning and Origin.” Www.phrases.org.uk, www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/30/messages/1838.html. Accessed 24 Mar. 2021.
[2] Barclay, Pat. “Altruism as a Courtship Display: Some Effects of Third-Party Generosity on Audience Perceptions.” British Journal of Psychology, vol. 101, no. 1, Feb. 2010, pp. 123–135, 10.1348/000712609x435733.
[3] https://www.facebook.com/teammonsterbox/posts/2900303263583754
[4] Urbaniak, Geoffrey C., and Peter R. Kilmann. Sex Roles, vol. 49, no. 9/10, 2003, pp. 413–426, link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2Fa%3A1025894203368, 10.1023/a:1025894203368. Accessed 27 Sept. 2019.
[5] Jonason, Peter K., et al. “The Dark Triad: Facilitating a Short-Term Mating Strategy in Men.” European Journal of Personality, vol. 23, no. 1, Feb. 2009, pp. 5–18, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/per.698, 10.1002/per.698.
[6] Jonason, Peter K., et al. “Mate-Selection and the Dark Triad: Facilitating a Short-Term Mating Strategy and Creating a Volatile Environment.” Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 51, no. 6, Oct. 2011, pp. 759–763, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886911003011, 10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.025.
[7] Jonason, Peter K., et al. “The Costs and Benefits of the Dark Triad: Implications for Mate Poaching and Mate Retention Tactics.” Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 48, no. 4, Mar. 2010, pp. 373–378, 10.1016/j.paid.2009.11.003.
[8] Csathó, Árpád, and Béla Birkás. “Early-Life Stressors, Personality Development, and Fast Life Strategies: An Evolutionary Perspective on Malevolent Personality Features.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9, 12 Mar. 2018, 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00305.
[9] “Nice Guys Finish First.” Topdocumentaryfilms.com, topdocumentaryfilms.com/nice-guys-finish-first/. Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.
