Machiavellian Intelligence Research Articles

Machiavellianism in Alliance Partnerships

Against a backdrop of limited research focusing on dark-side characteristics in alliances, the authors argue that Machiavellianism in an alliance influences strategies pertaining to gaining new knowledge and using power to achieve better performance effectiveness. They develop a model using theories-in-use procedures and drawing from both Machiavellian intelligence and achievement goal perspectives, which they test in a quasi-longitudinal study of 199 marketing alliances. The results suggest that Machiavellianism relates negatively to collaborative learning and positively to learning anxiety and use of power. The findings also indicate that collaborative learning enhances performance, whereas learning anxiety and use of power result in underperformance. Collaborative learning, learning anxiety, and use of power fully mediate Machiavellianism's impact on performance. Finally, Machiavellianism's relationships with collaborative learning and learning anxiety are moderated positively and negatively, respectively, by partners’ collaborative history. This evidence provides managers with a more in-depth understanding about the nature, functioning, and performance relevance of Machiavellianism in alliance partnerships.

On the Animal Trail

On the Animal Trail

Testing the role of macaque social tolerance in ability to follow human eye gaze.

Comments on an article by R. Bettle and A. G. Rosati (see record 2022-45647-001). The testing of subjects' abilities to follow human eye gaze has been particularly well studied in nonhuman primates, and this is the question addressed by the Featured Article for this issue by Bettle and Rosati. As described in Bettle and Rosati, he competition hypothesis, stemming from the Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis, predicts that species that are more competitive and aggressive will exhibit greater ability to use cues like eye gaze. The tolerance hypothesis, conversely, predicts that species that are more tolerant and affiliative will exhibit greater ability to use these cues. Bettle and Rosati tested Barbary macaques with identical methods. Compared to rhesus macaques, Barbary macaques are relatively tolerant and highly affiliative. Importantly, the authors coded the video-recorded data blind and with high interobserver reliability. The authors found that Barbary macaques were also able to follow human eye gaze: Although roughly half the individuals looked up and followed human's eye gaze in the no barrier condition, only a third looked up in the barrier condition where they could not see what the human was looking at by doing so. These results were quite comparable to the earlier study conducted with rhesus macaques, suggesting that tolerant and less competitive species actually show similar skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

A behavioral task for exploring dynamics of communication system in dilemma situations

This research proposes a behavioral task to demonstrate the process of evolution of human communication systems based on the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, claiming that human sophisticated social intelligence such as linguistic ability has been formed through behaviors that maximize self-interest in a competitive social situation. The proposed task was designed as a dilemma game involving messaging to establish Machiavellian communication. The game was developed based on experimental semiotics, a method that generates novel artificial language and examines language functions. Through the proposed task, pairs of participants attach meanings to arbitral graphic symbols forming novel communication systems. In case studies using this task, participants modified or ambiguated the communication system by means of a dilemma between sharing and monopolizing rewards. The result suggests that the proposed game causes ambiguation of the communication system that functions equivocally.

Machiavellian strategist or cultural learner? Mentalizing and learning over development in a resource-sharing game.

Theorists have sought to identify the key selection pressures that drove the evolution of our species' cognitive abilities, life histories and cooperative inclinations. Focusing on two leading theories, each capable of accounting for many of the rapid changes in our lineage, we present a simple experiment designed to assess the explanatory power of both the Machiavellian Intelligence and the Cultural Brain/Intelligence Hypotheses. Children (aged 3-7 years) observed a novel social interaction that provided them with behavioural information that could either be used to outmanoeuvre a partner in subsequent interactions or for cultural learning. The results show that, even after four rounds of repeated interaction and sometimes lower pay-offs, children continued to rely on copying the observed behaviour instead of harnessing the available social information to strategically extract pay-offs (stickers) from their partners. Analyses further reveal that superior mentalizing abilities are associated with more targeted cultural learning - the selective copying of fewer irrelevant actions - while superior generalized cognitive abilities are associated with greater imitation of irrelevant actions. Neither mentalizing capacities nor more general measures of cognition explain children's ability to strategically use social information to maximize pay-offs. These results provide developmental evidence favouring the Cultural Brain/Intelligence Hypothesis over the Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis.

Studying the evolution of cooperation and prosociality in birds

Author(s): Massen, Jorg J.M. | Abstract: The social brain hypothesis (Humphrey, 1976) poses that the intricacies of social life may have been a significant selection pressure for the evolution of mind. This evolution may act on competition between group members and strategies to outcompete others (Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis: Byrne a Whiten, 1988), or on cooperative tendencies between group-members that provide benefits that cannot be reached by a single individual (Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis: Moll a Tomasello, 2007). The latter hypothesis, however, creates an evolutionary conundrum, as cooperation is prone to free-riders, and with defection being an evolutionary stable system, the occurrence and complexity of cooperation in humans and other animals remains a puzzle. Several theoretical advances have been made to explain the evolution of cooperation nonetheless, with kin-selection (Hamilton, 1964) and reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971) being the most prominent ones. However, the proximate mechanisms that foster the strategies proposed in the Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis and the required cognition in nonhuman animals, remain a hotly debated topic (see Massen et al., 2019).

Roman Machiavels on the Spanish Stage: Pérez de Montalbán’s Amor, privanza y castigo

This essay incorporates the paradigms of Theory of Mind and Machiavellian intelligence to explore the cognitive and ideological implications of the dramatization of Roman political rivalries in early modern Spanish drama. Perez de Montalban’s Amor, privanza y castigo is analyzed as a distant mirror to the Spanish privanza system of its own time. Like other historians and playwrights of his era, Montalban highlights the duplicitous and manipulative cognitive activities of Roman politicians to examine the ethical dimensions and dilemmas in the contemporary institution of government by royal favorites.

Celebrating the continued importance of “Machiavellian Intelligence” 30 years on.

The question of what has shaped primates' (and other species') cognitive capacities, whether technical or social demands, remains a hot topic of inquiry. Indeed, a key area of study within the field of comparative psychology in the last few decades has been the focus on social life as a driving force behind the evolution of cognition, studied from behavioral and neurological perspectives and from theoretical and empirical perspectives. Reflecting on contemporary studies of primate social cognition specifically, one cannot ignore the book, Machiavellian Intelligence, coedited by Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten (Byrne & Whiten, 1988a). It is a keystone for the field: The volume as a whole has been cited over 3,000 times, without even including citations to individual chapters. This year, 2018, is the 30th anniversary of the first publication of Machiavellian Intelligence, and with this special issue of the Journal of Comparative Psychology, we mark that milestone. The key concept put forth in Machiavellian Intelligence was that primates' sociocognitive abilities were shaped by the complex social worlds that they inhabited, rather than the technical or foraging challenges that they faced, as had previously been posited. In this issue, we consider the strength of the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis 30 years on to explain primate social cognition, and we consider its applicability to nonprimate species and to other cognitive domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Communication as a fundamental part of machiavellian intelligence.

The Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis proposes that individuals in complex social groups require sophisticated social cognition. This hypothesis has advanced our understanding of the complex social lives of animals and how individuals interact with others in their groups. Machiavellian intelligence is the capacity of an individual to alter the behavior of others around it to the individual's own advantage. This capacity is typically facilitated by complex communicative systems, social systems, and cognitive abilities. Curiously, communication among group members has not traditionally been a focus of research related to the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis. Here, we show how a focus on communicative and cognitive complexity together can elucidate nuanced manipulations for selfish gains in socially complex groups, under both competitive and cooperative scenarios. Finally, we argue more generally that a research emphasis on communication in complex social groups may accelerate our understanding of the social mechanisms underlying complex adaptive behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Machiavellian intelligence retrospective.

Thirty years on from the publication of Machiavellian Intelligence (Byrne & Whiten, 1988), it is time to consider how the ideas in it have influenced understanding of the evolution of intelligence, how they have been tested (and sometimes misunderstood), and whether they are still relevant today. This essay attempts to do so. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Spontaneous social tool use in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Although there is good evidence that social animals show elaborate cognitive skills to deal with others, there are few reports of animals physically using social agents and their respective responses as means to an end-social tool use. In this case study, we investigated spontaneous and repeated social tool use behavior in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). We presented a group of chimpanzees with an apparatus, in which pushing two buttons would release juice from a distantly located fountain. Consequently, any one individual could only either push the buttons or drink from the fountain but never push and drink simultaneously. In this scenario, an adult male attempted to retrieve three other individuals and push them toward the buttons that, if pressed, released juice from the fountain. With this strategy, the social tool user increased his juice intake 10-fold. Interestingly, the strategy was stable over time, which was possibly enabled by playing with the social tools. With over 100 instances, we provide the biggest data set on social tool use recorded among nonhuman animals so far. The repeated use of other individuals as social tools may represent a complex social skill linked to Machiavellian intelligence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Social, Machiavellian and cultural cognition: A golden age of discovery in comparative and evolutionary psychology.

The years since the publication of Machiavellian Intelligence have witnessed a golden age in discoveries concerning social cognition in human and nonhuman primates and many other animal taxa too. Here, I briefly dissect some of the variants of the social intelligence hypotheses that have evolved in this time and offer a selective overview of the scientific discoveries in this field, particularly in primates, over the last 30 years. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis revisited: What evolved cognitive and social skills may underlie human manipulation.

Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis revisited: What evolved cognitive and social skills may underlie human manipulation.

Reading wild minds: A computational assay of Theory of Mind sophistication across seven primate species.

Theory of Mind (ToM), i.e. the ability to understand others' mental states, endows humans with highly adaptive social skills such as teaching or deceiving. Candidate evolutionary explanations have been proposed for the unique sophistication of human ToM among primates. For example, the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis states that the increasing complexity of social networks may have induced a demand for sophisticated ToM. This type of scenario ignores neurocognitive constraints that may eventually be crucial limiting factors for ToM evolution. In contradistinction, the cognitive scaffolding hypothesis asserts that a species' opportunity to develop sophisticated ToM is mostly determined by its general cognitive capacity (on which ToM is scaffolded). However, the actual relationships between ToM sophistication and either brain volume (a proxy for general cognitive capacity) or social group size (a proxy for social network complexity) are unclear. Here, we let 39 individuals sampled from seven non-human primate species (lemurs, macaques, mangabeys, orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees) engage in simple dyadic games against artificial ToM players (via a familiar human caregiver). Using computational analyses of primates' choice sequences, we found that the probability of exhibiting a ToM-compatible learning style is mainly driven by species' brain volume (rather than by social group size). Moreover, primates' social cognitive sophistication culminates in a precursor form of ToM, which still falls short of human fully-developed ToM abilities.

Toward a formal analysis of deceptive signaling

Deception has long been an important topic in philosophy (see Augustine in Treatises on various subjects, New York, Fathers of the Church, 1952; Kant in Practical philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996; Chisholm and Feehan in J Philos 74: 143–159, 1977; Mahon in Int J Appl Philos 21: 181–194, 2007; Carson in Lying and deception, Oxford University Press, New York, 2010). However, the traditional analysis of the concept, which requires that a deceiver intentionally cause her victim to have a false belief, rules out the possibility of much deception in the animal kingdom. Cognitively unsophisticated species, such as fireflies and butterflies, have simply evolved to mislead potential predators and/or prey. To capture such cases of “functional deception,” several researchers (e.g., Sober, From a biological point of view, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994; Hauser in: Whiten, Byrne (eds) Machiavellian intelligence II, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 112–143, 1997; Searcy and Nowicki, The evolution of animal communication, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2005; Skyrms, Signals, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010) have endorsed the broader view that deception only requires that a deceiver benefit from sending a misleading signal. Moreover, in order to facilitate game-theoretic study of deception in the context of Lewisian sender-receiver games, Brian Skyrms has proposed an influential formal analysis of this view. Such formal analyses have the potential to enhance our philosophical understanding of deception in humans as well as animals. However, as we argue in this paper, Skyrms’s analysis, as well as two recently proposed alternative analyses (viz., Godfrey-Smith in Review of signals: evolution, learning, and information by Brian Skyrms, Mind, 120: 1288–1297, 2001; McWhirter in Brit J Philos Sci 67: 757–780, 2016), are seriously flawed and can lead us to draw unwarranted conclusions about deception.

Lying bodies, lying faces: deception and the Stanislavskian tradition of character

Current acting orthodoxy values immediacy and spontaneity above most other histrionic virtues. ‘Stanislavskian’ directors such as Mike Alfreds, Declan Donnellan and Katie Mitchell focus primarily on action-playing; others reject this emphasis and favour so-called “processional” acting, foregrounding intuitive reactions. Both approaches turn their backs on the idea of character as an entity distinct from the actor and (mis)direct the concept of character away from social and psychological categories. In so doing they are blind to the interpretative value of considering characters not only as individuals but also as representing a group. The paper argues that full embodiment transcends questions of individual behaviour and motivation and acknowledges the ‘typical’ dimensions of character. The paper further outlines an alternative (and older) understanding of character creation, which is essentially mimetic and entails an approach to acting foregrounding a psychophysical transformative process.At the same time, recent discourse has brought back into view Bradleyan approaches to character analysis based on inference, while applications to acting of principles derived from cognitive science have sought to unify the two approaches of ‘character’ and ‘personality’ acting.The paper therefore asks why this ageless debate refuses to go away and suggests that one answer might be found in considering acting in the context of recently-delineated frameworks derived from Deception Theory and Machiavellian Intelligence. Observed through this prism, a transformative process moves the act of theatre away from the naturalistic presentation of ‘behaviour’ and (back) towards an explicit, constructed theatricality in which acting is deliberately deceptive.

Large testes and brain sizes in odontocetes (order Cetacea, suborder Odontoceti): the influence of mating system on encephalization

Little is known about their mating systems, but odontocetes may utilize the same types of mating systems as terrestrial mammals. Species with relatively large testes are likely to be polygynandrous, while species with smaller testes and greater sexual size dimorphism (SSD) are predicted to be polygynous. The “Machiavellian intelligence or sexual conflict” hypothesis predicts that polygynadrous species also evolved larger brains both to coerce conspecifics to mate and to resist mating attempts by undesirable mates. The “costly tissue” hypothesis predicts that species investing heavily in testes invest less in brain tissue and vice versa to conserve energy. Residual testes and brain mass measurements were used to test the sexual conflict and costly tissue hypotheses in 40 species of odontocetes. Correlations were performed on both raw data and independent contrasts to control for phylogeny. There was a significant positive correlation between residual testes mass and SSD in both data sets, and between residual testes mass and residual brain mass in the non-phylogenetically controlled data set. Results indicate a negative relationship between increased testes masses and SSD in odontocetes. There was no support for the costly tissue hypothesis. Support for Machiavellian intelligence or sexual conflict hypothesis was found only when phylogenetic effects were not considered.

Knowing Subjects. Cognitive Cultural Studies and Early Modern Spanish Literature by Barbara Simerka (review)

Reviewed by: Knowing Subjects. Cognitive Cultural Studies and Early Modern Spanish Literature by Barbara Simerka Catherine Connor Simerka, Barbara. Knowing Subjects. Cognitive Cultural Studies and Early Modern Spanish Literature. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue UP, 2013. 259 pp. Barbara Simerka’s Knowing Subjects introduces a particular facet of cognitive studies to scholars and students of early modern Spanish literature and culture. For that reason it requires a reviewer to explain how her topic relates to the vast new area of interconnected studies across the humanities and neurological sciences. In effect, her method is a literary and cultural analysis familiar to most scholars but with added insights from studies of how human mind-brains process life and art. Simerka begins with a list of abbreviations and cognitive terms sculpted to the topics and works she will discuss. These focus on mind reading, theory of mind, social intelligence, and Machiavellian intelligence. In a recent conversation, she indicated that cognition in her subtitle means “knowledge,” as in the “Knowing” of her title (July 12, 2014). Simerka describes it as “a meta-awareness of one’s mind” and “one’s being aware of how one is thinking.” In effect, she is referring to the 5% of cognition that we call our “reasoning” and “intelligence.” Thus she implies that literature and culture present evidence based on some of the unconscious 95% of cognitive processes, including different emotions, levels of empathy, and processes of perception. Simerka’s first chapter introduces her methodology. The most thorough and broadly authoritative source she cites is Howard Mancing’s manuscript Voices in Everything. This comprehensive compilation of evidence is essential reading for cognitive approaches to culture and literature. Mancing’s accounts of contexts and interconnectedness demonstrate how human mind-brains of individuals in their societies, cultures, and literature continually emerge through biological and ecological [End Page 678] adaptations. Even more importantly, applications of these discoveries in cognitive literary and cultural scholarship should radically change the profound mistrust and lack of scientific knowledge among literary scholars. Simerka describes the new approach to textual analysis as “neither deterministic nor bio-reductive; it seeks to incorporate new knowledge about the brain and about human cognitive practices into the already interdisciplinary practice of cultural studies” (5). Even though her chapters might read like normal cultural and literary analysis, Simerka’s readers should keep the non-deterministic and non-reductive nature of the cognitive revolution in mind if they are to prepare for the long-range legacy that the new field will have as we expand knowledge of and appreciation for early modern Spanish works in context. Chapter one introduces how her knowledge-and-reasoning approach to cognition will focus on “mind reading” (MR) and “theory of mind” (ToM) as “a supplement to, and not as a replacement for, current historically based and ideological approaches” (4). As in Lisa Zunshine’s edition of Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies, the paradigm Simerka adapts “takes into account the interconnectedness of the evolved human brain, social communication and aesthetics” (4). In short, these are the 95% of body-brain processes that make possible scholars’ interpretations of the 5% of cognition and reasoning that are consciously manifest in cultural and literature. Indeed, most of the scholars she cites in the volume are offered as cultural evidence that Simerka’s approach to cognition and literature is contextually based. In Simerka’s second chapter, “Theory of Mind, Social Intelligence and Urban Courtship Drama,” the rational definitions of cognition are used to interpret gender and culture as reflected in early modern Spanish dramatic texts. In this regard, Simerka wisely focuses on three female Spanish dramatists and their implied knowledge of mind reading (MR) as demonstrated in their characters. Although Simerka does not explain that MR abilities differ among individuals in their life experience observing bodies and faces, she applies psychological theories of MR. For example, the theory of mind (ToM) used by writer Ana Caro for her character Leonor in Valor, agravio y mujer is classed as Theory Theory. Another type of ToM, Simulation Theory (ST), is detected in Simerka’s treatment of characters in Angela de Azevedo’s El muerto disimulado. Explanation of both types of ToM are skillfully interwoven in her...

DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL AND MACHIAVELLIAN INTELLIGENCE BETWEEN THE MANAGEMENT STUDENTS FROM THE CZECH AND SLOVAK REPUBLIC

Identifying and specifying social and Machiavellian intelligence is related to the broader discussion about the existence of several kinds of intelligence. When characterizing these two particular types it is inevitable to take a broader social context defining them into account. In the report we present the results of comparisons of assessing the selected attributes of social and Machiavellian intelligence by the management students from Czech Republic and Slovakia by means of the TSIS methodology, Mach IV and EMESI - an own methodology for detecting social intelligence. The presented comparisons are based on the influence of the macrosocial and microsocial environments on perception of the studied types of intelligence. This comparative analysis is connected also to the theoretical and methodological verification of the original methodology for measuring social intelligence - EMESI.

What is the emotional core of the multidimensional Machiavellian personality trait?

Machiavellianism is a personality trait characterized by interpersonal manipulation and associated with specific patterns of emotional and social cognition skills. The aim of this study was to investigate its socio-cognitive characteristics by determining its association and predictors on the basis of a multidimensional approach to Machiavellianism. We used Mach IV scale to assess “Machiavellian Intelligence” skill of participants (Christie and Geis, 1970). It includes three subscales that are (1) the use of deceit in interpersonal relationships, (2) a cynical view of human nature and (3) the lack of morality. Associations were found between Machiavellianism and low levels of empathy and affective ToM, and high levels of alexithymia, anhedonia, depression, and anxiety. These associations were observed in varying proportions depending on the three subscales of Machiavellianism. The addition of anhedonia and trait-anxiety to the concepts of empathy and alexithymia made it possible to gain a better understanding of the emotional core of Machiavellianism. These findings are discussed in the light of developmental and adaptive perspectives.