Machiavellianism and Self-Monitoring: As Different as “Me” and “You”

Abstract

Although both Machiavellianism (Christie & Geis, 1970) and self-monitoring (Snyder, 1974) are characterized by the use of effective impression management, previous research has indicated that the scales measuring the two traits are not significantly correlated. One explanation for the divergence of these dimensions is that Machiavellianism is associated with a self-oriented, “assimilative” form of impression management, whereas self-monitoring is associated with an other-oriented, “accommodative” form of impression management (Barnes & Ickes, 1979). This explanation suggested the hypothesis that Machiavellianism would be associated in dyadic conversations with the use of first-person singular pronouns at the expense of second- and third-person pronouns, whereas self-monitoring would be related to the use of second- and third-person pronouns at the expense of first-person singular pronouns. By analyzing the conversations occurring in 40 unstructured dyadic interactions, we obtained support for these hypoth...