Feelings and motives underlying Machiavellian behavioural strategies; narrative reports in a social dilemma situation

Abstract

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 Dark Triad and framing effects predict selfish behavior in a one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma

“…Our finding, while exploratory, that Machiavellianism was a unique predictor of defection is consistent with past work which has found that Machiavellianism relates to exploitation in social dilemmas [ 20 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 45 ]. Our findings provide support for the notion that Machiavellian people are especially likely to successfully exploit others, and to gain from doing so [ 70 ].…”

“…Bereczkei and Czibor [ 24 ] found that Machiavellianism was negatively correlated with contributions in a public good game and positively correlated with total profit gained by the end of the game. Other studies have found similar results, namely that individuals high in Machiavellianism contributed less to the public good and achieved relatively higher levels of personal gain in a public goods game [ 25 , 26 ]. These findings suggest that individuals high in Machiavellianism may be especially able to exploit others in contexts in which they stand to gain.…”

“…It is this shared core of antisocial behavior that we were mainly interested in exploring in order to determine how differences in personality can relate to selfish behavior. However, in keeping with the substantial literature showing that Machiavellianism is strongly predictive of self-maximizing behavior in social dilemmas [ 20 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ], we were also interested in whether Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy might uniquely predict selfish behavior or interact with the framing of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.…”

The manipulative skill: Cognitive devices and their neural correlates underlying Machiavellian’s decision making

“…This leaves them free to analyze the situation dispassionately and proceed according to strategy. A recent analysis of narrative reports showed that high Machs use significantly fewer verbs when referring to emotional involvement, highlighting the importance of their cool and rational character (Czibor, Vincze, & Bereczkei, 2014).…”

Lay People Representations on the Common Good and Its Financial Provision

“…In the psychological literature, on the other hand, they have not been studied in conjunction, and there is a dearth of studies considering lay people representations on the common good and its financial provision. Although the financial contribution to the common good has been investigated in social dilemma research, the psychological literature has mostly focused on understanding why and when people make cooperative rather than selfish choices by examining a number of constructs ranging from internal psychological variables, such as social value orientation (Van Lange, 1999), Machiavellian traits (Czibor, Vincze, & Bereczkei, 2014), social identity (Brewer & Kramer, 807247S GOXXX10.1177/2158244018807247SAGE OpenCastiglioni et al research-article20182018 1 Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy 1986), empathy (Batson et al, 1995), and emotions (Ketelaar & Tung Au, 2003), to external variables, such as incentives and sanctions (Molenmaker, De Kwaadsteniet, & Van Dijk, 2016), information (Van Dijk, De Kwaadsteniet, & De Cremer, 2009), and framing effects (Van Dijk & Wilke, 1997). However, all these studies tend to use money as a way to operationalize people's contribution rather than made it the object of study itself.…”