Volk et al. (2015) tested the hypothesis that a behavioral tendency towards bullying others, far from only representing a maladaptive social behavior, could actually benefit the perpetrators in terms of the sexual opportunities that accrue to them.
Two separate samples consisting of adolescents (N = 334) and university students (N = 144), were examined by the researchers. Participants filled out questionnaires relating to their perpetuation of bullying behaviors, whether or not they were sexually active or dating, and at what age the commenced dating and how many partners they had dated. The participant's popularity with other students, and self-perceived attractiveness and likeability, were also reported.
The researchers found generally positive evidence that bullying was an evolutionarily adaptive behavior, and this was mostly independent of the common variance with attractiveness and age, sex, or popularity.
A further study by Provenzano et al., used cross-sectional samples consisting of older adolescents (N = 144;111 women Mean Age 18.32) and 396 younger adolescents (N = 396;230 girls, Mean age 14.62). Participants reported their level of engagement in bullying behaviors and their level of bullying victimization, as well as answering a question measuring their number of sexual partners, since the age of 12.
It was found that a greater likelihood of being the perpetrator of bullying behavior was correlated with a greater sexual partner count. However, due to the nature of the study it was impossible to tell if the mediating factor in this relationship was the bullying itself, or the
HEXACO personality traits that are associated with a greater likelihood of engaging in this behavior, specifically the trait 'Honesty-Humility', that was found to being generally lower among bullies. This personality trait has also generally been found to be related to the 'dark triad' traits.
Discussion:
Bullying likely makes men more directly attractive to women for a variety of reasons. Despite frequent claims that bullies are primarily motivated by low-self esteem and unstable home environments, exclusive bullying victims generally have lower self-esteem vs. those who are both perpetrators and victims of bullying in boys (Pollastri et al., 2009). Thus, bullying may be an effective tactic, a form of
intrasexual competition (Lee, 2017; Provenzano et al. 2017), that lowers one's sexual rivals' social status and boost one's status, likely explaining (at least partially) why bullies are more attractive to women.