Study explores how attachment style, dark triad traits, and sexual coercion impact romantic couples

The quality of a romantic partnership depends heavily on how people form emotional bonds, with certain personality traits and aggressive behaviors playing a lesser but still notable role. According to a recent study published in Personality and Individual Differences, women’s relationship satisfaction is most strongly tied to their own attachment styles and their partner’s behaviors, while men’s satisfaction is closely linked to experiencing or initiating sexual coercion. These findings highlight the different ways romantic partners influence each other’s happiness and relationship stability.

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, relationship satisfaction serves a specific function. Researchers view it as a subjective evaluation of the costs and benefits of staying in a specific partnership. A satisfying relationship historically offered reproductive advantages, helping couples stay together to raise children in a stable environment.

A variety of personal characteristics can influence this sense of satisfaction. One of the most prominent is adult attachment. Attachment theory describes how people respond to emotional closeness and the potential for rejection.

Some individuals develop a secure attachment style, meaning they are comfortable with intimacy and trust their partners. Others develop insecure attachment styles, which generally fall into two categories: anxious and avoidant. Anxiously attached individuals constantly worry about their partner’s availability and fear rejection. Avoidantly attached individuals feel discomfort with emotional closeness and prefer to maintain physical and psychological distance.

Researchers are also interested in how socially aversive personality traits influence romantic partnerships. These characteristics are often grouped into the Dark Triad. This includes narcissism, which involves egocentrism and a constant need for admiration. It also includes Machiavellianism, characterized by manipulative behavior, and psychopathy, marked by high impulsivity and a lack of empathy.

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Another major factor that imposes costs on a relationship is sexual coercion. This involves a person using psychological pressure, manipulation, or physical threats to force a romantic partner into unwanted sexual activity. Coercion can involve being the victim of these behaviors or being the perpetrator who initiates them.

Lead author André Luís Moura de Oliveira Almeida and his colleagues conducted a two-part investigation to see how all these factors work together. Previous research often looked at these variables in isolated pairs, such as how attachment style relates to relationship satisfaction. The research team wanted to use an advanced statistical approach to evaluate all these overlapping traits and behaviors simultaneously.

By testing everything at once, the researchers could identify which traits genuinely predict relationship happiness when other personality factors are taken into account. They designed a two-part investigation that looked at people on an individual level and also analyzed pairs of romantic partners.

In the first study, the researchers surveyed 848 individuals who had been in a romantic relationship for at least twelve months. The participants completed questionnaires measuring their relationship satisfaction, attachment styles, Dark Triad traits, and experiences with sexual coercion. The sample was overwhelmingly female, with women making up about 88 percent of the group.

The statistical models revealed that a woman’s relationship satisfaction was predicted entirely by her own attachment style. Higher levels of insecure attachment were associated with lower relationship satisfaction. Dark Triad personality traits and sexual coercion did not predict a woman’s romantic fulfillment in this initial model.

The researchers noted that the lack of a link between a woman’s satisfaction and her experience of sexual coercion is a repeating pattern in relationship science. Some studies suggest that subtle forms of coercion, such as emotional manipulation or excessive demands for time, might be misinterpreted by victims. In a cultural context with strong patriarchal norms, these behaviors might be viewed as signs of a partner’s commitment rather than abusive tactics.

The survey also looked at what predicts sexual coercion. For women, being a victim of sexual coercion was predicted by their own perpetration of coercion. This reflects a phenomenon known as victim-perpetrator overlap, where individuals who experience relationship aggression are highly likely to inflict it as well.

A woman’s likelihood of perpetrating sexual coercion was predicted by her levels of anxious attachment and her Dark Triad traits. This suggests that a deep fear of relationship abandonment, combined with antisocial personality tendencies, can manifest as sexually aggressive behavior.

For the men in the first study, none of the variables predicted relationship satisfaction, victimization, or perpetration. The researchers determined these results were not statistically significant. This lack of predictive power was likely due to the small number of male participants in this phase of the research, which limited the statistical strength of the analysis.

To understand how these traits operate within an active relationship, the researchers conducted a second study featuring 55 heterosexual couples. Both partners participated in a joint video call with a researcher while completing their surveys independently. This method allowed the group to analyze how one person’s traits predicted their own satisfaction as well as their partner’s satisfaction.

In this dyadic study, a woman’s relationship satisfaction was negatively predicted by her own avoidant attachment style. Her happiness was also negatively predicted by her male partner’s traits. Specifically, if her partner had an anxious attachment style, exhibited narcissism, or perpetrated sexual coercion, her satisfaction dropped.

The male partners showed a different pattern. A man’s relationship satisfaction was not predicted by his own attachment style or his own dark personality traits. Instead, a man’s satisfaction was negatively predicted by his own experience as a victim of sexual coercion.

A man’s satisfaction was also tied to the perpetration of coercion. His relationship happiness dropped if he perpetrated coercion against his partner. His satisfaction also dropped if his female partner perpetrated sexual coercion against him.

The differences between the two studies highlight the importance of looking at both individuals and couples. When women were studied individually, their satisfaction seemed tied only to their internal attachment styles. When women were studied alongside their partners, it became obvious that they were highly sensitive to their partner’s emotional state, narcissism, and aggressive behaviors.

Men, on the other hand, did not show strong links between their satisfaction and abstract personality traits. Instead, their relationship fulfillment was tied closely to concrete negative experiences, particularly the presence of sexual coercion in the relationship.

The researchers noted several caveats to their findings. The first study featured a massive gender imbalance, which made it difficult to draw firm conclusions about men on an individual basis. The second study featured a relatively small sample size of couples, making the results exploratory.

Additionally, the couples who agreed to participate in a joint video interview might have been happier overall than average couples. Partners in highly abusive or dissatisfied relationships were likely to avoid volunteering for this type of research. The data was also collected in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily among young, educated individuals with their own incomes, which limits how broadly the findings can be applied.

Future research should attempt to replicate these models with larger and more diverse groups of couples. Scientists also need to investigate further why women sometimes do not perceive sexual coercion as a negative factor in their relationship satisfaction until specific dyadic testing is applied.

The study, “Sexual coercion and relationship satisfaction: Dyadic and individual contributions of attachment and dark triad traits,” was authored by André Luís Moura de Oliveira Almeida, Sarah Torres Teixeira de Mello, Michella Vaz de Castro, and Mauro Dias Silva Júnior.