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There's a common perception that women tend to go for the "bad guys". It goes against logic and reason to see someone attracted to a person of callous and prideful demenor but actually, there might be a psychological reason behind it. Known as the dark triad, it consists of three character traits of psychopathy, machiavellianism and narcissims. These three negative traits involve characteristics that are selfish, manipulative and vain in nature, amongst other qualities. Dr. Minna Lyons, one of the authors of a new study on the attractiveness of the dark triad, explains the results.
It seems that women, after being exposed to different faces of men, are attracted to those that give off a "bad boy" type. That is, faces that reflect negative traits such as narcissism and remorselessness are more sexually appealing because these traits reflect higher reproductive success. This suggests that women are attracted to the dark triad because of the link to having more offspring.
The study more specifically found that women with a strong preference for narcissim could be most strongly related to reproductive success as this specific strong preference was found in women who gave birth to more children. Previous studies have also found that narcissims was the trait that is most associated with psychological and physical benefits in men in addition to social success compared to the other two traits of the dark triad.
Source material from Psyblog