> In 2003, scholars from the University of South Carolina looked at the impact of being nice on perceived male attractiveness. They recruited 194 female volunteers to participate in a mock dating game in which they had to pick between two men, Todd and Mike. The researchers varied Todd’s levels of handsomeness and “niceness” while keeping Mike’s personality and looks constant and neutral.

This sounds like a bullshit experiment. I seriously doubt the researchers managed to capture the effective kind of cocky/jerk behavior that works well with some women. Additionally, they're measuring self-reported opinions from women, rather than what the real-world result would be. I say this without any sort of negativity attached to it, but women often say they feel one thing while acting as though they feel another, especially as it pertains to their relationships with men. Again, I don't think this is a negative trait, it just is what it is. I see men all the time acting less than gentlemanly towards women and having the woman verbally shooting him down, but still going home to sleep with him. It's so predictable when done right.