Why Do Antiheroes Appeal to People with Dark Traits?

Antiheroes, morally ambiguous characters who are not clearly either good or evil, are popular protagonists in modern media. A recent study found that people who have a particular affinity for antiheroes tend to be relatively high in antisocial traits, particularly aggression, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. This suggests that people may particularly enjoy characters who they perceive as being similar to themselves. This is in line with other research that has found that people’s media preferences generally tend to reflect their personality traits and that…