The meaning and measurement of Machiavellianism in Chinese and American college students

The Emotional Machiavellian: Interactions Between Leaders and Employees

This paper examines the emotional processes in Machiavellian leadership. The leadership literature portrays Machiavellians as 'dark' individuals that engage in unethical actions, causing employee dissatisfaction, distress, emotional exhaustion and high turnover. However, research has seldom questioned the processes behind these unethical and negative outcomes. This study explores Machiavellian emotional processes at multiple levels-within-persons and relational levels (between-persons and interpersonal interactions in organisations). In this study, emotions and leadership are not explored in isolation but as social processes that occur in relationships between leaders and employees in evolving organisational settings. This study draws on 20 participants from four large multi-national construction firms in Sri Lanka. Open-ended semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the emotions of Machiavellians in organisations. The findings suggest that Machiavellianism influences leader and employee emotional processes. Furthermore, the emotional processes, influenced by Machiavellianism, appear to facilitate the development of leader and employee relationships and emotional experiences at within-persons and relational levels in organisations.

Measurement invariance tests of revisions to archaically worded items in the Mach IV scale

The Machiavellian IV [1] instrument, developed almost 50 years ago to measure trait Machiavellianism and still in wide use in personality research, uses item wording that is not gender-neutral, makes use of idiomatic expressions, and includes archaic references. In this two-sample study, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on one sample to examine the structure of responses to the Mach IV. In an independent second sample the resulting EFA structure was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis-based measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I) tests in a control group with the original archaic items and a treatment group with eight items rewritten in a more modern vernacular. Specific model testing steps [2] and statistical tests [3] were applied in a bottom-up approach [4] to ME/I tests on these two versions of the Mach IV. The two versions were found to have equal form, equal factor loadings, but unequal indicator error variances. Subsequent item-by-item tests of error invariance resulted in substantial decrements to fit for three revised items suggesting that the error associated with these items was not equal across the two versions.

Race Effects on the Employee Assessing Political Leadership: A Review of Christie and Geis' (1970) Mach IV Measure of Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism has commonly been defined as the need to develop and defend one's power and success (Machiavelli, 1513/1902). Scholars have adopted the perspective of Machiavelli to examine political dynamics in organizations (Andersson, 2000; Harrell-Cook, 1999; Harrison, 1998; Hochwarter, 2000; Shankar, 1994). The Mach IV (Christie & Geis, 1970) has been the primary measure of Machiavellianism as a distinct personality construct. The purpose of this paper is to review the use of the Mach IV in organizational behavior research. Given the inadequacies of the current version of the Mach IV this paper suggests a revised measure of Machiavellian personality be developed and used in conjunction with other measures of political behavior and skills.

Psychometric Investigation of the Mach IV Scale Measuring Machiavellianism

A psychometric investigation of the MACH IV scaele developed by Christie and Geis in 1970 to measure Machiavellianism was conducted. Factor analyses performed on data from two different samples of respondents suggest empirical difficulties in the number and nature of dimensions underlying the scale. Comparable analyses of a Satisfaction scale developed by Hunt and Chonko in 1984 and administered at the same time to the same subjects as the MACH IV scale indicated no similar difficulties with the Satisfaction scale's empirical validity.

Cross-Cultural Issues in Personality and Career Assessment

The purpose of this article is to discuss some important issues regarding cross-cultural personality and career assessment. Within the last decade, this topic has received increased attention because of a growing awareness of the cultural bias inherent in many of our major personality assessment instruments (e.g., Dana; 1993, Marsella & Kameoka, 1989). The present article is divided into four major sections. The first section discusses the importance of the cross-cultural perspective in psychology and discusses such issues as reducing ethnocentric bias in psychology through the use of comparative cultural studies and culturally sensitive research methods. This section also includes a brief discussion of the concepts of ethnocentricity, culture, and ethnocultural identity, all of which are essential for understanding the assessment of personality across cultures.

The second section discusses the complex relationships between culture and personality, including the possibility that the very concept of personality may be culturally constructed. The third section discusses some of the conceptual and methodological issues involved in personality assessment across cultures, with a special emphasis on psychometric equivalency (i.e., linguistic, conceptual, scale, and normative) across cultures. The fourth section provides a conceptual framework for integrating the cross-cultural issues of personality assessment to career assessment.

Investigating the MACH-IV with item response theory and proposing the trimmed MACH*

The MACH-IV was investigated (N = 528) with item response theory to elucidate its psychometric properties and suggest a trimmed version, the MACH*. The core content of the MACH-IV seemed to be cynicism/misanthropy and the MACH* was formed from the 5 most informative and precise MACH-IV items. The MACH* showed good internal consistency and construct and criterion validity comparable to the MACH-IV. The MACH-IV and MACH* measure most precisely at average to above average levels of Machiavellianism. Implications for theory and measurement of Machiavellianism are discussed.

Machiavellianism and management: a review of single-nation studies exclusive of the USA and cross-national studies

This is a review of literature on Machiavellianism involving single-nation studies exclusive of the USA and cross-national studies. The articles are empirical studies with a direct or indirect relationship to management. National groups with especially high and low scores on the Mach IV and Mach V are identified. Issues which need to be addressed include a sampling bias which favors students, a lack of field studies, questions raised about factor structure of common scales used to measure Machiavellianism, and inconsistencies in the results of studies involving the relationship of locus of control, achievement motivation, and authoritarianism to Machiavellianism. Research involving organizational context and job performance should be undertaken as should additional cross-national research.