Malicious mind readers? A meta-analysis on Machiavellianism and cognitive and affective empathy

Abstract

This meta-analysis investigated how the antagonistic personality trait Machiavellianism (Mach) relates to cognitive and affective empathy. Due to the role of manipulation in Mach, previous research argued that Mach should go along with higher empathic ability but found negative effects very consistently. Thus, some scholars argued that individuals with high scores in Mach had empathic deficits. The current meta-analysis (70 studies, 76 samples, and 232 effect sizes) challenged both perspectives by investigating bivariate and multivariate relations between Mach, self-reported cognitive empathy, cognitive empathic skills, and affective empathy. Further, we tested if gender distributions, student samples, and different utilized Mach scales accounted for differences across studies (i.e., moderated those). Bivariate analyses revealed inverse correlations of Mach with all facets of empathy (ρs from -.10 to -.36). The relations with self-reported and performance-based cognitive empathy almost dissolved when controlling for affective empathy.Neither of the proposed moderators significantly explained differences across studies. In general, studies with a high percentage of men and those comprising non-students revealed more diverse correlations than studies with a large proportion of women and studies that exclusively recruited students. The results suggest low affective empathy in Mach but contradict both the empathic deficits-and the "skilled mind reader"-perspectives.

The Machiavellian Bully Revisited: A Closer Look at Differences and Processes of Machiavellian Bullying and Cyberbullying Perpetration

“…These findings lend support to our proposed mediator because dehumanization is sought to bypass empathic reactions towards others (Bandura et al, 1996;Haslam & Loughnan, 2014). In the same vein, Mach was linked to lower affective empathy (vicarious experience of others' affective states), but not to empathic performance (emotion recognition skills; Blötner et al, 2021). In line with definitional aspects of Mach, Blötner et al (2021) thus concluded that Mach was related to disregard of others, but not to empathic deficits.…”

“…In the same vein, Mach was linked to lower affective empathy (vicarious experience of others' affective states), but not to empathic performance (emotion recognition skills; Blötner et al, 2021). In line with definitional aspects of Mach, Blötner et al (2021) thus concluded that Mach was related to disregard of others, but not to empathic deficits. This substantiates our considerations on that individuals high in Mach engage in (cyber)bullying as an intentional act of harming others.…”

Leader Humor and Followers’ Change-Oriented Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Role of Leader Machiavellianism

“…Followers likely form somewhat negative attitudes toward Machiavellian leaders. For example, a recent meta-analysis showed that because Machiavellian leaders are highly motivated by their own ultimate interests, they are low in empathy [ 64 ]. In a similar vein, Frazier and Jacezko [ 65 ] showed that followers who have Machiavellian leaders have low perceptions of their leaders’ ethical leadership.…”

Empathy as a Mediator of the Effect of Dark Triad Personality, Social Support, and Demographic Factors on Cyberbullying Behavior in SMAN 10 Depok Students

“…In other words, the dark triad can encourage students to carry out cyberbullying with Empathy as a mediator variable. Previous research reported that psychopathy and narcissism were correlated with low empathy Jonason et al (2013) as well as Machiavellianism had a negative relationship with Empathy, meaning that individuals with high Machivellianism had low Empathy (Blötner et al, 2021). Meanwhile, social support in previous studies reported that social support has a positive relationship with Empathy, meaning that the higher the social support for individuals, the higher the Empathy (Park et al, 2015).…”