The relation between memories of childhood psychological maltreatment and Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism is a hot topic in several branches of psychology. Using Life-History Theory several studies identified Machiavellianism as a fast life strategy. According to this idea, Machiavellianism should be related to childhood adversities. Using a sample of adults we investigated the relationship between Machiavellianism and self-reported memories of childhood psychological maltreatment. Participants (247 individuals, 141 female, 32.38 ± 5.43 years of age on average) completed the Mach-IV Scale and the Childhood Abuse and Trauma Scale. Results showed a relationship between neglect and Machiavellianism in general, Machiavellian tactics, and Machiavellian world view. There was also a marginally significant link between punishment and Machiavellian tactics. Results are discussed from a moral developmental perspective and through the alexithymia hypothesis of Machiavellianism.     

Explorations in employee envy: Feeling envious and feeling envied

Two aspects of envy at work (i.e., feeling envied by others and feeling envy toward others) were studied with 222 first-level supervisors. Results supported predictions concerning the previously unstudied construct of feeling envied by others (i.e., associations were identified with job longevity, Machiavellianism, and sense of competitive reward), as well as replicated earlier findings for feeling envy toward others (i.e., associations were identified with self-esteem, Machiavellianism, leader-member exchange, sense of competitive reward, and job dissatisfaction). Also, employee Machiavellianism and leader-member exchange were found to interact for the dependent variable of being the target of coworker envy such that in-group members who were highly Machiavellian reported the greatest sense of being envied by coworkers.     

Machiavellianism in patients and their children.

The role of the family in the development of Machiavellianism was examined in this study. High- and low-Machiavellian sixth graders played a bluffing game. Their parents completed Machiavellian belief measures. The Machiavellianism of fathers and mothers was positively related to their children's success at deceiving others but not at seeing through others' attempts at deception. In addition, fathers' Machiavellianism was positively related to their children's Machiavellian beliefs. These data support a modeling hypothesis for the development of Machiavellianism. Unexpectedly, the children's own behaviors and beliefs were unrelated. This pattern of results suggests that a child's manipulative behaviors and beliefs are learned separately and only become consistent over time.     

Borderline Personality Organization predicts Machiavellian interpersonal tactics

Despite the phenomenological (e.g., manipulativeness) and dynamic (i.e., emotion dysregulation) analogies between Machiavellianism and Borderline Personality Organization (BPO), the relationship between these constructs has not yet been investigated. In our study, 225 non-clinical, non-student adults (130 females; 32.33 ± 5.42 years of age on average) completed measures of BPO and Machiavellianism. Results showed that Machiavellian personality traits were positively correlated with fear of fusion, diffuse identity, and use of primitive defenses. Machiavellianism, in general, and Machiavellian interpersonal tactics were predicted by fear of fusion and use of primitive defenses. Results are discussed from the perspective of Life History Theory.     

Size the day: The time perspectives of the Dark Triad

Recent empirical findings on the Dark Triad and Life History Theory suggest that the behaviors linked to the Dark Triad are dominantly characterized by a fast life strategy with increased motivation to acquire short-term benefits and prioritize situations with immediate rewards. Current studies have also suggested that time perspectives could be one of the psychological mediators between actual behavior and life history strategies assuming that a present-oriented attitude is associated with fast life strategies. In line with this suggestion, we predicted to find associations between time perspectives and the Dark Triad traits. The prediction was investigated by self-reports. In accordance with the predictions, the results showed positive associations of the Dark Triad traits with the present-oriented time perspectives. In addition, unlike Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy were found to be related to a negative view of the past. Our study provides the first evidence for significant associations between Dark Triad personality and time perspectives.     

Bully/victim problems and their association with Machiavellianism and self‐efficacy in Greek primary school children

Background: Previous research demonstrated that Machiavellian beliefs are linked with bully/victim problems at school. However, Machiavellianism was treated as a single construct and not as multidimensional. Children's perceptions of self‐efficacy in both social and academic domains have been related to conflictual peer interactions but not directly to bully/victim problems. This study extends previous work by examining the association of Machiavellianism and self‐efficacy with bully/victim problems. Aims: The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between bully/victim problems and (a) components of Machiavellian beliefs, (b) Self‐efficacy for Assertion, (c) Self‐efficacy for Aggression and (d) Self‐efficacy for Learning and Performance, among school‐age children. It was also examined whether children who bully others and are bullied themselves (bully/victims) are a distinct group in terms of Machiavellian beliefs and the above perceptions of self‐efficacy. Sample: The sample consisted of 186 children drawn from the fourth to sixth grade classrooms of four primary schools in central Greece. Method: Peer victimization and bullying behaviour were assessed by two 6‐item self‐report scales (Austin & Joseph, 1996), Machiavellian beliefs with a 20‐item scale (Christie & Geis, 1970), Self‐efficacy for Assertion and Self‐efficacy for Aggression with two 6‐item scales (Egan & Perry, 1998) and Self‐efficacy for Learning and Performance with an 8‐item scale (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991). Higher scores reflected greater victimization, bullying behaviour, Machiavellianism and domain specific self‐efficacy. Data were analysed using both correlational and categorical approach. Results: Factor analysis of the Kiddie Mach scale revealed four main factors: Lack of Faith in Human Nature, Manipulation, Dishonesty and Distrust. The results of the correlational approach suggest that both bullying and victimization are associated with most of these factors, overall Machiavellianism and self‐efficacy measures. Separate analyses for boys and girls provide a more precise picture of that association. The results of the categorical approach, regarding differences in the Kiddie Mach and Self‐efficacy scales between bullies, victims and bully/victims, suggest that bully/victims are a distinct group in terms of Lack of Faith in Human Nature and overall Machiavellianism. Moreover, bully/victims were found to be similar to victims with respect to Self‐efficacy for Assertion but similar to bullies with respect to Self‐efficacy for Aggression. Conclusions: Anti‐bullying interventions might profit from a greater focus on mastery‐oriented motivation and more emphasis on citizenship and interpersonal relationships in order to minimize children's aggression‐encouraging cognition and reduce Machiavellian attitudes. Further research is needed to explain satisfactorily the behaviour patterns of bully/victims.     

Constraints for Some,Opportunities for Others? Interactive and Indirect Effects of Machiavellianism and Organizational Constraints on Task Performance Ratings

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine how the indirect relationship between Machiavellianism and task performance ratings is qualified by organizational constraints (e.g., inadequate resources). Contrary to past research, we suggest that constraints can actually facilitate performance ratings among highly Machiavellian employees because they seek to attain high ratings through self-interested behaviors and social influence processes rather than legitimate task performance. Thus, constraints that inhibit legitimate performers should actually create more opportunities for highly Machiavellian employees.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were collected from 110 subordinate–supervisor dyads that were recruited from Psychology courses at a small liberal arts college.

Findings

The results elaborate on past research focused on organizational constraints to reveal that the indirect relationship between Machiavellianism and task performance is positive and significant under conditions of high organizational constraints. This relationship is not significant and trends in a negative direction when constraints are low.

Implications

This study highlights the importance of considering how resource constraints impact different types of performers in organizations. When resources are abundant, legitimate performance is possible and Machiavellians are hampered in their ability to rely on careerist strategies to succeed. In contrast, high constraints create situations that enable Machiavellian behaviors to pay off.

Originality/Value

This study’s originality lies in its counterintuitive finding that organizational constraints might actually be beneficial for some employees who adopt Machiavellian, careerist strategies. This is the first study to demonstrate that constraints do not have consistent, negative effects on task performance and to elaborate on how constraints impact the performance of Machiavellian employees.     

The Anatomy of Revolutionists

A questionnaire containing 62 items relating to the New Left and 28 items measuring anomia, authoritarianism, and Machiavellianism was given to 153 entering freshmen at Columbia in the fall of 1968. The five factors emerging from a factor analysis of responses to the items were labeled: New Left Philosophy, Revolutionary Tactics, Machiavellian Tactics, Machiavellian Cynicism, and Traditional Moralism. Students who had been politically active prior to coming to college scored higher than the rest of the group on New Left Philosophy, Revolutionary Tactics, and Machiavellian Cynicism, but scored lower on Machiavellian'Tactics and Traditional Moralism. In the spring of 1969, a revised set of items was given to students in introductory psychology classes at Columbia University and New York University. While the findings from these subjects replicated those found with the Columbia freshmen, they showed subtle differences which led to speculations about the radicalization process. Also discussed are the relationships between the nature of political participation and all of the factors, with special emphasis on the discrepancy between Machiavellian Tactics and Cynicism.     

Validation of the Greek Cypriot Translation of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure

Psychopathy is conceived of as a pathological constellation of personality traits, manifested in aberrant behavioral, interpersonal, and emotional tendencies. This study examined within a Greek-speaking nonclinical sample (N = 419) associations between differing phenotypic dimensions of psychopathy (boldness, meanness, disinhibition) assessed via the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) and self-report criterion measures of psychopathology, personality, and history of abuse and neglect. Consistent with predictions of the triarchic model of psychopathy, evidence was found for distinct correlates of the 3 phenotypic dimensions. Boldness was associated with both adaptive (immunity to anxiety/distress, fearlessness, low hostility) and maladaptive tendencies (grandiose manipulative traits, Machiavellian features including desire for control/status, and verbal aggression). Meanness was related to callous and unemotional traits, features of Machiavellianism (e.g., amoral manipulation and distrust of others), physical aggression, and absence of positive parenting. Disinhibition, by contrast, was characterized by anxiety and distress, exposure to violence, and retrospective accounts of abuse history, along with impulsive, irresponsible, and hostile tendencies. These findings indicate that the Greek-Cypriot translation of the TriPM effectively assesses the constructs of the triarchic model and extend what we know about their empirical correlates.     

The Relationship Between Machiavellianism and Knowledge Sharing Willingness

Knowledge sharing has become a legitimate and important organizational activity. Over the last two decades, firms have become creative in their efforts to make knowledge sharing take place. Meanwhile, Machiavellian orientation has been regarded as one of the most important variables in the study of management and organizational behavior for the last three decades. However, the existing literature does not offer any measure of relationships between Machiavellianism and knowledge sharing willingness. Therefore, this research aims to explore the relationship between Machiavellianism and knowledge sharing willingness. With a total of 325 valid questionnaires completed by employees, the paper presents some conclusive and valuable suggestions for businesses and scholars alike.     

Confirmatory factor analysis of the Machiavellian Personality Scale

According to Christie and Geis (1970), Machiavellianism predisposes one to self-interested behavior, manipulation, and deceit often at the expense of others. The measurement of Machiavellianism began with the Mach IV (Christie & Geis, 1970), which has long suffered from an indeterminant factor structure and poor reliability. Dahling, Whitaker, and Levy (2009) developed the Machiavellian Personality Scale (MPS) to address these shortcomings. In the current examination of the MPS, a four-factor structure is supported with confirmatory factor analysis, but the relationships in a full structural equation model between the four subscales and the criterion of empathy is problematic in that some MPS subscales are negative, some positive, and some unrelated to empathy. Additionally, reliability issues arose with the MPS as have historically occurred with the Mach IV. The four subscales of the MPS appear to act as suppressors of each other, further complicating the predictive relationship between Machiavellianism and other variables.     

Dark traits: Sometimes hot,and sometimes not? Female preferences for Dark Triad faces depend on sociosexuality and contraceptive use

Although the Dark Triad personality (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) has been researched widely, only few studies have investigated women's preferences for men who present high and low Dark Triad features. With an on-line two-alternative forced choice questionnaire we investigated the interaction between preferences of 1962 Finnish women for facial stimuli that differed in the intensity of the Dark Triad traits, accounting for mating context, contraceptive use, and sexual openness (sociosexuality). Among non-contraceptive-using women, unrestricted sociosexuality was positively correlated with preference for high narcissistic male faces, whereas in contraceptive-using women, sociosexuality correlated negatively with preference for high Machiavellian male faces. We suggest that i) facial cues to Dark Triad traits are detectable by women, but ii) their effect on the judgments of attractiveness may vary depending on sociosexuality and contraceptive use, and that iii) preference for narcissism follows similar variation trends as masculinity preference, depending on sociosexuality and the use of hormonal contraception.     

Situational and Dispositional Predictors of Performance: A Test of the Hypothesized Machiavellianism Structure Interaction Among Sales Persons1

The hypothesized interaction found in laboratory studies between situational structure and Machiavellianism was tested on working samples of sales representatives. The results suggested that success or failure of Machiavellian tactics used in sales organizations appears to depend on the organization's structure: In loosely structured sales organizations high Machiavellians significantly outperformed low Machiavellians, but in tightly structured sales organizations, high Machiavellians failed to outperform low Machiavellians. These results and implications for future research are discussed.     

The Influence of Autonomy and Supervisor Political Skill on the Use and Consequences of Peer Intimidation in Organizations

Based on social influence theory, we develop a model in which the use of peer intimidation by Machiavellian employees results in greater promotability ratings by supervisors. However, consistent with interdependence theory, we expect that this process is qualified by job autonomy and the political skill of the supervisor making the promotability rating. Based on a sample of 204 supervisor–subordinate dyads, we find that peer intimidation mediates the Machiavellianism–promotability relationship when supervisor political skill is low rather than high, and when job autonomy is high rather than low, thereby yielding a pattern of moderated mediation, and supporting the hypotheses. These results suggest that job autonomy and supervisor political skill represent key interdependent mechanisms that regulate the effectiveness of social influence attempts made with intimidation in organizations.     

Situational and personality determinants of a victim's identification with a tormentor

The effects of two situational (tormentor legitimacy and tormentor justification) and two personality (victim's belief in the just world and victim's Machiavellianism) factors on several reactions of a victim to his tormentor were explored. Greater conformity by victims to their tormentor's opinions occurred when the victims believed strongly in the just world and when the tormentor was well justified for his behavior; there was a greater conformity towards the tormentor in these conditions than towards a neutral nontormentor. The tormentor received less positive evaluations from the victim when he acquired his role illegitimately or when the victim was Machiavellian; when the tormentor acquired the role legitimately, he was liked no less than the nontormentor. The experimental variables did not affect behavioral imitation of the tormentor or the interpersonal distance maintained by the victim. The results failed to conform to any simple identification process. Several explanations for these results are explored and directions for additional research are discussed.     

Machiavellianism and manipulation in the mental patient role

Patients’ Machiavellian orientations were compared to their reputations among the staff as manipulators, helpers, or model patients. For both acute and chronic patients, Machiavellianism was consistently found to relate significantly to the manipulator reputation and not to the other reputations The relationships held for patients diagnosed psychotic as well as nonpsychotic. These findings support the propositions that mental patients attempt to manipulate the staff in their everyday contact with them and that manipulation constitutes one of the major adaptive styles employed by patients The relationships were demonstrated more reliably in group treatment programs than in an individual treatment program Expected differences in the relationships according to birth order were not found Machiavellian social desirability significantly related to the helper and model patient reputations for acute patients, suggesting its potential value as a dispositional variable also.     

Self-disclosure as an influence strategy: Effects of machiavellianism,androgyny, and sex

In a study linking the characteristics of androgyny and Machiavellianism to the use of self-disclosure, participants were asked to complete two writing tasks. The tasks consisted of an influence situation (soliciting donations) and an affiliative situation (getting acquainted). The hypotheses were that Machiavellian females would be more self-disclosing on the influence task, androgynous individuals would be more self-disclosing on the affiliative task, and that the affiliative task would elicit more self-disclosure than the influence task. Results indicated that Machiavellian males were actually more self-disclosing on the influence task, and non-Machiavellian males were more self-disclosing on the affiliative task. Higher self-disclosure overall was elicited by the affiliative task, and there was some support for the hypothesis that androgynous individuals are more self-disclosing in an affiliative task.We would like to thank Florence L. Geis and Paul Harris for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and Richard Hall for his assistance in judging self-disclosure.     

Machiavellianism and sexual behavior: Motivations,deception and infidelity

The current study investigated the influence of Machiavellianism, a personality trait characterized by a manipulative interpersonal style and willingness to exploit others (Christie & Geis, 1970), on three areas of sexual behavior. Men (N = 90) and women (N = 192) aged 18–81 years (M = 25.82, SD = 9.85) completed the Mach IV (Christie & Geis, 1970), YSEX Questionnaire (Meston & Buss, 2007), Sexual Deception Scale (Marelich, Lundquist, Painter, & Mechanic, 2008) and Intentions Towards Infidelity Scale (Jones, Olderbak, & Figueredo, 2011). Those with high levels of Machiavellianism were more likely to engage in sexual behavior for physical reasons, goal attainment and insecurity. In particular, Machiavellian men and women endorsed stress reduction, experience seeking, resources, social status, revenge, utilitarian reasons, boosting self-esteem, duty/pressure, and mate guarding as motivations for sexual behavior. Machiavellianism was also a significant predictor of each form of sexual deception investigated (blatant lying, self-serving and avoiding confrontation) and intentions to engage in infidelity. Sex did not moderate the influence of Machiavellianism on sexual behavior.     

公共政策情境中行为习惯的形成机制与培养策略

引导社会成员重塑日常良好行为习惯是增强公共政策有效性的重要路径和切入点, 洞悉并把握行为习惯的形成机制对具体培养策略的制定和实施大有裨益。行为习惯是指通过高频重复的奖励习得, 在记忆中形成的情境与反应之间的内隐联结。作为一种特殊的内隐记忆系统, 行为习惯具有自动化、情境线索依赖性、对当前奖励低敏感性等特征。行为习惯的形成机制包含两个独立且共发的习得机制, 即联结习得机制和奖励习得机制。在日常良好行为习惯的形成初期, 目标引导着个体对行为价值的习得。在培养社会成员日常良好行为习惯的过程中, 应将情境线索的稳定性、高频行为的低认知重复以及奖励的合理设置, 作为公共政策助推社会成员养成日常良好行为习惯的三大核心策略。未来的研究方向应着力于加强习惯研究的学科视阈融合, 更新行为习惯领域的研究范式, 重置公共设施以提升有益行为的易达性, 以及引入商业模式以共促社会成员日常良好行为习惯的重塑。     

Machiavellian emotion regulation in a cognitive reappraisal task: An fMRI study

Affective coldness is one of the main features of Machiavellianism. Recent studies have revealed that Machiavellians are emotionally detached and that this “affective blunting” is associated with intense feelings, emotional instability, negative emotions, and difficulty in enduring distress. We used brain-imaging techniques to investigate emotion regulation in Machiavellianism at a neuropsychological level. We used situations in which participants were required to demonstrate emotional flexibility to explore the controversy surrounding the fact that Machiavellianism is associated with both cold-mindedness and emotional instability. Participants performed a reappraisal task in which emotionally evocative pictures (from the International Affective Picture System) were presented in different contexts (negative, positive, and neutral). They were asked to interpret a scenario according to its title and to reinterpret it according to another context created by a new title (e.g., negatively labeled pictures shifted to positively labeled ones). During task performance, Machiavellians showed increased activation of brain regions associated with emotion generation—for example, the amygdala and insula. This indicates that Machiavellian individuals are able to be involved emotionally in social situations. Increased activation in the temporal and parahippocampal regions during reappraisal suggests that Machiavellians use semantic–perceptual processes to construct alternative interpretations of the same situation and have enhanced memory for emotional stimuli. Furthermore, they seem to possess an intense awareness that leads them to shift attention from external to internal information to detect environmental changes. These cognitive processes may enable them to adjust their behavior quickly. This study supports the flexibility hypothesis of Machiavellianism and suggests that Machiavellians’ approach to emotion regulation is linked to their rational mode of thinking.