Synthetic Scarcity and Its Discontent

This study explored the reasons and motives underlying the decisions of individuals with strong Machiavellian attitudes (High Machs). One hundred and fifty undergraduate students completed the Mach-IV test, and their contributions to, financial success in and narrative reports of a public goods game were analysed. High Machs contributed less to the public good and gained more benefit than Low Machs. Analysis of the narrative reports showed that High Machs used significantly fewer verbs referring to emotional involvement and first person plural verb forms, than did Low Machs. This study confirmed previous findings that High Machs have a cool and rational character and a proself orientation and showed that their lack of group orientation may account for their low cooperation in social dilemmas. The results of narrative content analysis provide a new perspective on the motives and values behind High Machs' decisions and success in different fields of social life.

The relevance of Machiavellian ism as a personality style for leadership was studied in the context of experimental task groups. The subjects were 84 male undergraduate students. The experimental design assigned 14 high Machiavellians (Machs) and 14 low Machs as leaders of task groups who constructed toy cube bridges under either a favorable or an unfavorable situation. In the favorable situation, the leader was presented to the group as technically qualified, and his authority was emphasized (high leader power). Task performance was evaluated according to a single criterion (structured task). In the unfavorable situation, the leader's qualities or special status were not emphasized (low power), and task performance was evaluated according to multiple criteria (unstructured task). No performance differences were found between high Mach and low Mach led groups. However, significant differences were observed with regard to group interactions. High Mach leaders gave more orders and were less involved in reducing tension. They were also less directive and requested more assistance when the situation was unfavorable, whereas the low Machs' behavior across situations remained unchanged. This study focused on the relevance of Machiavellianism as a personality style for leadership behavior. The concept of Machiavellianism, as introduced by Christie and Geis (1970), pertains to cognitive agreement with the basic ideas of Nicollo Machiavelli, for example, mistrust in human nature, lack of conventional morality, opportunism, and lack of affect in interpersonal relationships. People who scored highly on standard measures of Machiavellianism (high Machs) were found to have a strong tendency to manipulate other people (Geis & Christie, Note 1). In an experimental bargaining coalition game, high Machs manifested better sense of timing and adjusted their acts to current circumstances. They also appeared to initiate and control the structure of group interaction. High Machs manifested higher effectiveness under ambiguous, rather than clear, situations. They also were found to be detached from ego-involving elements in bar

Subjects who held a Machiavellian view of life, as measured by Christie's Mach Scales, were more convincing liars than non-Machiavellians. Sixty-four college students (high and low Mach men and women) were videotaped denying knowledge of a theft. Half had just been directly implicated in the theft; the other half made the same denial truthfully. A different group of 64 high and low Mach men and women college students viewed the 1.25-minute videotape clips in random sequence and judged the denials for veracity. The judgments were analyzed in an eight-factor, equal-n analysis of variance. The judges discriminated truth from lies accurately overall. As predicted, lying high Machs were more believed than lying low Machs. Also as predicted, high Machs were harder to judge. Lying high Machs were believed as much as truthful high Machs, but lying low Machs were less believed than truthful lows. People who hold a Machiavellian view of life are expected to be smooth liars. In ordinary parlance Machiavellianism is synonymous with the use of guile and deceit. Although Machiavelli did not advocate lying as a preferred policy, he assumed its necessity in an imperfect world. In fact he emphasized maintaining a public appearance of virtue while practicing whatever means were required to achieve one's ends. When the truth is unlikely to serve one's purpose, a lie is presented instead. Since Christie's (1970) development of the Mach Scale, a face-valid measure of agreement with Machiavelli, a number of studies have demonstrated that high scorers were more willing and able con artists than low scorers (Christie & Geis, 1970). But in contrast with the positive results for general manipulative skills, empirical demonstration of high Machs' hypothesized lying ability has been lacking. The first study using the Mach Scales in which objectively identifiable lying (by subjects) was observed was that of Exline, Thibaut, Hickey, and Gumpert (1970). After cheating with a partner when the experimenter was called out of the room, subjects were interrogated by the experimenter. Listening to audio tapes judges rated high Requests for reprints should be sent to Florence L. Geis, Department of Psychology, 220 Wolf Hall, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19711.

Studies relating Machiavellianism and helping behaviour have yielded contradictory data. The present experiment examined situational effects (subjects alone, in communicating triads, and in non‐communicating triads) on the helping behaviour of low and high Machs. While working on an apparent experimental task, university students heard a loud crash and cries for help coming from outside the experimental room. Low Machs helped significantly more often than high Machs, though the effect was mainly due to decreased helping by high Mach communicating triads. Contrary to previous helping behaviour research, face‐to‐face communication led to decreases in helping. Analysis of communication indicated that cue exchange was in fact more facilitated in non‐communicating groups, where ‘startle responses’ were more obvious. The results are discussed in terms of the social influence explanation of group size effects on helping. It is suggested that differences in low and high Mach communication patterns rather than differences in their sympathy for fellow human beings might account for the greater helping by low Machs. The need to explore the interaction of individual and situational factors in future research is stressed.

Machiavelli as a poker mate — A naturalistic behavioural study on strategic deception

Forty-eight female subjects observed a confederate steal money from them. When accused of stealing, the confederate either expressed remorse or did not express remorse. Subjects were then given the opportunity to aggress against the confederate. More aggression was directed against a non-remorseful than against a remorseful confederate. There was also a significant interaction effect of the remorse manipulation and subject's level of Machiavellianism. High Machs aggressed more against a remorseful confederate than did low Machs. High Machs were more suspicious of the remorseful confederate's sincerity. High Machs also tended to show less aggression than low Machs toward the non-remorseful wrongdoer.

Introduction. A number of reports have identified significant personality differences in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) when compared with age-matched controls. We hypothesised that these differences may be related to impairment in prefrontal inhibitory functions resulting in the expression of new “Machiavellian” personality traits. Methods. Thirty-five patients with PD and 17 age-matched controls were assessed with a set of neuropsychologic, personality and mood tests as well as the Mach IV scale, which measures a set of “Machiavellian” personality characteristics. Results. PD patients with elevated Machiavellian traits (“high Machs”) were selectively impaired on tests of prefrontal function relative to “low Mach” patients. In addition, while high Machs did not differ from low Machs in terms of age, educational level, Hoehn-Yahr stage, mood function, or Mini Mental State Exam score, they indicated greater willingness to affiliate with a fictional Machiavellian character and scored significantly lower on the “cooperativeness” and “self-directedness” subscales of the Cloninger Temperament and Character Inventory. Conclusions. We suggest that (1) PD patients with frontal impairment are vulnerable to dramatic personality change, and (2) the frontal lobes are required for maintenance of prosocial personality traits.

Consumer opportunistic behaviour has long drawn attention from both managers and scholars, but its special application to two-sided markets has been ignored. In this paper, we consider four primary factors that contribute to consumer opportunistic behaviour: individual personality (Machiavellianism); service guarantee policy; platform attitude and reference-group behaviour, following the ethical decision-making model (Ferrell and Gresham, 1985); and characteristics of two-sided markets. We obtained four findings. First, consumers with higher levels of Machiavellianism (High Machs) are more likely to engage in opportunistic claiming behaviour; second, reasonable compensation evokes a desire for unethical behaviour in consumers with lower levels of Machiavellianism (Low Machs), while reducing the likelihood of opportunistic claiming behaviour in High Machs. Moreover, platform attitude and reference group behaviour only have significant effects on Low Machs. Specifically, and third, platforms with tolerant attitudes are more likely to be confronted by opportunistic claims; fourth, a reference group's opportunistic behaviour misleads others into behaving similarly.

Three decades of research has revealed that people scoring high in Machiavellianism (high Machs) are manipulative and domineering. However, the domineering style of high Machs may preclude them from using manipulations that require a display of weakness. The authors examined whether Machiavellianism moderates the use of sandbagging-a manipulative strategy in which people display low ability to induce an opponent to reduce effort or lower his or her guard. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 198) reported that they would reduce effort in response to a disadvantaged opponent and anticipated that their opponent would behave similarly if they were disadvantaged. In Experiment 2 (N = 66), low Machs in competition sandbagged their opponent when they were uncertain that they could otherwise beat him. High Machs, in contrast, preferred a show of strength to a show of weakness, displaying high ability even when sandbagging might have been an advantageous strategy.

The first purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the social-emotional and rational-cognitive explanations of group risky shift on choice dilemmas (hypothetical life situations) by comparing shift in groups of low Mach (emotional) and high Mach (non-emotional) subjects. Consistent with the rationalcognitive explanations of group shift, group composition was not observed to affect shift magnitude.The second purpose was to examine the effects of Machiavellian beliefs on social functioning. Mixed support was obtained for hypotheses derived from prior theory and research on the Machiavellian personality. The perceptions of high Machs, as compared with low Machs, concerning the direction of shift, were more in line with their actual shift, providing evidence for the proposition that the former are more astute social observers.

90 managers from a High-tech firm self-administered the Mach IV questionnaire. Analysis showed no significant difference between the more Machiavellian-oriented managers and their less Machiavellian peers on either of two dimensions. The High Machs were not promoted more often nor did they expect to be promoted more often than Low Machs in this study. Machiavellian tendencies were not related to ‘career plateauing.’

Although Machiavellian individuals (Machs) have been characterized as lacking a concern for conventional standards of morality, it is clear from previous research that high Machs are not consistently more amoral or immoral than low Machs. A study was conducted to explore the ethical orientations of persons who score low versus high in Machiavellianism. The Mach V Scale and the Ethics Position Questionnaire were completed by 119 subjects. Results showed that Machiavellian subjects endorsed ethical positions that were more relativistic and less idealistic than subjects who scored low in Machiavellianism.

Implications of person–situation interactions for Machiavellians' unethical tendencies: The buffering role of managerial ethical leadership

High, middle and low Machiavellian undergraduates ( ns = 26) evaluated paragraphs describing cognitively balanced and unbalanced situations. All subjects preferred balanced over unbalanced situations. High Machs were more reserved in their positive evaluation of balanced situations and in their negative evaluation of unbalanced situations than Middle Machs, who in turn were more reserved than the low Machs. The findings are in accordance with the personality syndrome attributed to High Machs by Christie and Geis.

A study was conducted to investigate the effects of task motivation (approach or avoidance) and level of Machiavellianism on cheating. As predicted, high Machs were not generally more likely to cheat than low Machs. Both groups were more likely to cheat to avoid punishment than to attain reward. This tendency was significantly more pronounced for the high Machs.