The dark side of dominance: Victory can fuel sexual aggression in psychopathic men

A new study published in Aggressive Behavior provides new insight into how certain personality traits may interact with social dynamics to increase the risk of sexual aggression. The research focused on heterosexual male college students and found that men with elevated levels of callousness and unemotional traits were more likely to send sexually explicit and unwanted content to a woman after winning a competition against another man. These findings suggest that feelings of power and dominance following a win may activate sexually aggressive behavior in some men, particularly those with psychopathic tendencies.

The researchers designed the study to address ongoing debates in the field of sexual aggression research, where different theoretical approaches—such as feminist and evolutionary frameworks—have often been treated separately. Feminist theories focus on social power, gender inequality, and cultural norms, while evolutionary perspectives emphasize biological drives and intermale competition.

Both perspectives agree that status plays a role in shaping male behavior, but research has rarely examined how social context and personality traits may jointly contribute to sexual aggression. The goal of the current study was to test whether a simulated status challenge—winning or losing a competition—would influence men’s sexually aggressive behavior, especially among those with psychopathic personality traits.

“This study was initiated by Dr. Amy Hoffmann as part of her graduate studies at the University of South Florida’s Clinical Psychology program,” explained Edelyn Verona, a professor of psychology, co-director of the Center for Justice Research & Policy at the University of South Florida, and co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Evidence-Based Criminal Justice Practices.

“Amy was interested in pulling together constructs relevant to evolutionary theories and feminist theories of sexual violence perpetration, and merging those with the study of individual difference risk factors, especially psychopathic traits on which we had conducted some previous research. Thus, we used an experimental approach to examine how much intermale competition and status loss/win in this competition would influence the extent to which men would be willing to expose a woman to unwanted sexual content, and if psychopathic trait would moderate the relationship between winning/losing a cognitive challenge against another male and a lab proxy of sexual aggression.”

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The research team recruited 298 heterosexual male college students, with 139 ultimately completing both parts of the study and providing valid data for analysis. The average participant was 21 years old, and the majority identified as white or Hispanic. Participants first completed a series of personality questionnaires, including a validated measure of psychopathic traits. This scale assessed two broad types of traits: interpersonal-affective traits (which include lack of empathy, manipulation, and dominance) and impulsive-antisocial traits (which include impulsivity, irresponsibility, and norm-violating behavior).

In the second part of the study, participants came to the lab and completed a simulated competition task. They were randomly assigned to either win or lose a cognitive challenge against another male, who was actually a trained confederate in half the cases. After the competition, participants were told they would take part in a media-sharing task with a female participant from another university lab (in reality, this “partner” was a prerecorded video of a woman who had expressed a strong dislike for sexual content).

Participants were given three video options—one sexually explicit, one romantic but not explicit, and one neutral—and were asked to choose and allocate time to clips they would send her. The amount of time they chose to send the sexually explicit clip, despite knowing the recipient disliked that kind of content, was used as a measure of sexually aggressive behavior.

The researchers found that, on average, men who won the competition sent longer durations of the unwanted sexually explicit clip than those who lost. This pattern contradicts the idea that a threat to status (such as losing) would provoke sexual aggression, at least in this context.

“We were expecting a status loss to be associated with more sexual aggression, with the idea that the sexual aggression would serve as an emotional repair technique,” Verona told PsyPost.

Instead, the data suggested that winning—and the increased feelings of power that likely accompanied it—was a more significant trigger. However, this effect was not uniform across participants. The most telling result came from the interaction between competition outcome and personality traits.

Specifically, men who scored higher on interpersonal-affective psychopathic traits were far more likely to engage in sexually aggressive behavior after winning the competition. For these men, the feelings of dominance and control following a win appeared to align with their callous, unemotional traits and produce a spike in aggressive sexual behavior. In contrast, men high in impulsive-antisocial traits did not show this pattern, and their behavior did not significantly change depending on whether they won or lost the competition.

This suggests that there may be more than one psychological route to sexually aggressive behavior. The study’s authors propose that men high in interpersonal-affective traits may pursue sexual aggression as a way of asserting control or reinforcing a sense of superiority—especially when they feel empowered by a recent win. Their actions are less about reacting to frustration or humiliation and more about taking advantage of a perceived opportunity to dominate.

“The results of the study were consistent with previous research in our lab which has suggested that psychopathic traits are linked to experiences of power/dominance, and those in turn are important for understanding different types of aggression (Hoffmann & Verona, 2019; Verona et al., 2022),” Verona said. “The results indicated that winning, and not losing, the intermale competition was associated with higher engagement in sexual aggression in the lab.”

These findings build on earlier research by the same lab, which has shown that psychopathic traits are linked to a desire for power and dominance in sexual contexts. In particular, individuals high in these traits may use sex as a way to feel in control, rather than as a form of intimacy or emotional connection. The new study adds to this by showing that situational factors—such as the outcome of a competitive encounter—can influence whether these tendencies are acted upon.

Interestingly, both psychopathy trait types were correlated with sexual aggression at the simplest level of analysis, but only the interpersonal-affective traits interacted with the win/loss condition to predict behavior. This points to the importance of distinguishing between different forms of psychopathy when trying to understand aggressive behavior. While impulsivity and norm-violating behavior may play a role in general aggression, it seems that calculated, unemotional dominance may be especially dangerous when combined with feelings of social superiority.

“Although both psychopathy factors were correlated with sending sexually explicit and unwanted content to a woman, only the interpersonal-affective traits interacted with winning to predict this sexual aggression,” Verona told PsyPost. “Thus, when presumed feelings of dominance associated with competition wins are combined with callous-unemotional traits, the risk of sexual aggression may be especially high in men.”

As with any study, there are some limitations. The sample consisted entirely of heterosexual, cisgender college men, so the results may not apply to other groups. The laboratory task was designed to simulate sexually aggressive behavior in a controlled environment, but it cannot fully replicate the complexity of real-world encounters. The study’s statistical power was also slightly below the ideal level for detecting some effects.

“The results require replication in a larger sample and using samples with higher range of scores on psychopathic traits,” Verona noted. “As with all laboratory-based experiments, improved internal control came at the cost of ecological validity, and the circumstances that lead to sexual aggression in the real world are more multifaceted and complicated.”

Nonetheless, the study makes a strong case for examining how situational and personality factors come together to shape sexually aggressive behavior. It challenges the idea that status threats are the only triggers for such actions, and instead suggests that feelings of power and dominance—especially when combined with traits like callousness and emotional detachment—may be just as risky.

The researchers emphasize that future work should continue exploring these dynamics in more diverse populations and with real-world variables, such as alcohol use or workplace hierarchies. Long-term, the goal is to develop interventions that help individuals with dominant tendencies channel their desire for status and control in healthier ways, reducing the risk of harm to others. This might involve strategies that promote empathy, encourage responsible expressions of leadership, or challenge cultural norms that equate masculinity with domination.

“The findings highlight the importance of attending to context, and dynamic social interactions in particular, as well as individual personality characteristics,” Verona said. “The role of dominance and attempts to maintain hierarchies seem to be important for aggression in its various manifestations, and future work hopes to build on this idea to examine potential treatment innovations that would channel desires for power in more healthy ways.”

The study, “Effects of Intermale Status Challenge and Psychopathic Traits on Sexual Aggression,” was authored by Edelyn Verona, Amy M. Hoffmann, Stephanie R. Hruza.