Men With One Specific Political Leaning Are More Likely To Be Gold Diggers Than Almost Every Woman, Says Study
MAYA LAB | Shutterstock It turns out that there’s a certain group of men who are more likely to be gold diggers than most women, and it all has to do with their political beliefs.
Many people think of women as being more likely to be stereotypical gold diggers, possibly because for a large portion of history, women were completely financially dependent on men. However, a new study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences suggests that calling women gold diggers is a much more unfair generalization than you might think.
Researchers concluded that left-wing men are the most likely to be gold diggers.
According to a Phys.org analysis of the study, 351 participants completed a survey for the scientists in which they had to “choose between an intimacy-focused partner or behavior or a more materialistic option.” The survey also offered insight into the presence of certain personality traits among the participants.
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Breaking the results down by gender and political leaning, the researchers came to an interesting conclusion. The group most likely to be gold-diggers was left-wing men.
On the whole, right-wing people were more likely to have gold-digging tendencies regardless of gender, but they still didn’t come close to the left-wing men. The study was conducted in Germany, so it’s difficult to say exactly how this information would translate to values and attitudes in the U.S., but it’s interesting nonetheless.
The researchers believe the way these men view themselves as romantic partners may explain why they’re more likely to be gold diggers.
The study authors explained, “One tentative interpretation is that, among men, left-wing identification may partly function as sexual signaling, consistent with previous work on moral and political traits as potential mate-signals.”
This is basically a scientific way of saying these men think they make better partners. In a publication from Charles Sturt University and Federation University, researchers explained that “mate value comprises an individual’s desirability on the mating market.” Different factors like personality, genes, and status combine to create “an evolved means of conveying information to a target” that says that person would be a worthy mate.
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All of this is supported by research from the Tufts Public Opinion Lab. Economics and politics student Lucy Morisse-Corsetti conducted a survey to determine how people with different political ideologies felt about dating. She found that men who exist at either extreme end of the spectrum are most interested in what are known as “life-organization traits.”
She said, “Very conservative or liberal men are possibly thinking more about: ‘What would I want my life to look like in terms of my financial state? What do I want my division of household labor to look like?’”
Gold diggers share some common traits regardless of their gender.
In addition to concluding that left-wing men are the most likely to be gold diggers, the scientists who performed the German study also took a look at what makes someone a gold digger in general. The survey that participants completed also evaluated what kind of dark personality traits they had.
These traits are commonly referred to as the “dark triad,” a theory which Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams proposed in 2002. The triad is made up of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
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The researchers found that gold diggers, whether they were men or women, tended to have higher levels of narcissism and psychopathy. Narcissists are often arrogant and attention-seeking, while those who are psychopathic don’t feel bad about hurting others. These qualities would fit gold digging well.
While left-wing men aren’t the only people capable of gold digging, it is interesting that the phenomenon is so prominent among them when liberal political views tend to align with ideas of equality and helping those who are less fortunate. Maybe they think they’re the less fortunate ones themselves.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
