Ok – so now you have learned a bit more about negotiating, and the importance of cooperation and communication. But how would you negotiate if you’re only interested in your own success? Machiavellians (named after Niccolo Machiavelli) believe that people are only out for themselves, thus you can only gain by being exploitative and deceitful.

To assess the extent to which people behave this way, the Machiavellian scale was designed by Richard Christie to measure the degree to which people believe others can be manipulated. Christie and his associates speculated that the perfect manipulator would use the following techniques:

1. Be cool and detached with other people.
2. Lack concern for conventional morality because rules often stand in the way of successful manipulation.
3. Have low ideological commitment because means are more important than ends.
4. Have no pathological disturbance or symptoms of neurosis or psychosis. A good manipulator must have an undistorted view of reality.

Do people with high Mach (Machiavellian) scores behave differently from those with low scores? In one fascinating bargaining study (Christie & Geis, 1970), ten $1 bills were placed on a table in front of three subjects. They were told that the $10 would belong to the first two who could agree on how to divide it. The only restriction was that the money had to be divided between only two; that is, one person had to be left out. One of the three persons in the group was a high Mach, one was a medium scorer, and the third was a low Mach. The average winning for high Machs was $5.57, for middle Machs $3.14, and for low Machs $1.29.

Research indicates that high and low Machs behave differently when the situation (1) allows for improvisation (i.e., when there is ambiguity or a lack of structure), (2) involves face-to-face interaction, and (3) is emotionally arousing. Under these three conditions, high Machs are more successful than low Machs in achieving their ends.

The behavioural difference is probably caused by several factors. First, high Machs tend to concentrate on a task and their own private goal. Low Machs get carried away with interpersonal relationships that may have little to do with the task at hand. Second, high Machs resist social influence, whereas low Machs accept it. Finally, high Machs control the group, whereas low Machs accept the structure defined by others. Other findings include the following:

1. Males are generally more Machiavellian than females.
2. High Machs do not do better on measures of IQ or ability.
3. Machiavellianism is not correlated with authoritarianism.
4. Lawyers, psychiatrists, and social psychologists are more Machiavellian than accountants, surgeons, or natural scientists.
5. High Machs are likely to come from urban rather than rural backgrounds

So, are you Machiavellian? Yes or no? What will this say about your negotiation style?

Christie, R. & Geis, F. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. Academic Press.