We advance a new account of why people endorse conspiracy theories, arguing that individuals use the social-cognitive tool of projection when making social judgements about others. In two studies, we found that individuals were more likely to endorse conspiracy theories if they thought they would be willing, personally, to participate in the alleged conspiracies. Study 1 established an associat...

This study explored how responsiveness, assertiveness, cognitive flexibility, and nonverbal immediacy might be related to Machiavellianism and a possible interaction of these relationships with biological sex. Participants (N = 234) completed the AssertivenessResponsiveness Measure (ARM), the Nonverbal Immediacy Scale (the self-report version; NISS), the Cognitive Flexibility scale, and a recen...

Against a backdrop of limited research focusing on dark-side characteristics in alliances, the authors argue that Machiavellianism an alliance influences strategies pertaining to gaining new knowledge and using power achieve better performance effectiveness. They develop model theories-in-use procedures drawing from both Machiavellian intelligence achievement goal perspectives, which they test ...

This study examined the associations between four personality dimensions associated with the dark triad (callous–unemotional traits, narcissism, impulsivity, and Machiavellianism) and theory of mind (TOM) abilities among 146 middle school children. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed narcissism to be positively associated with TOM, callous–unemotional (CU) traits to be n...

BACKGROUND Personality influences decision making and ethical considerations. Its influence on the occurrence of research misbehavior has never been studied. This study aims to determine the association between personality traits and self-reported questionable research practices and research misconduct. We hypothesized that narcissistic, Machiavellianistic and psychopathic traits as well as sel...

AIM The aim of the researches was to inspect the relation between borderline personality and Machiavellianism as well as the tendency to apply various manipulation tactics in everyday life and in therapy. METHOD The test used an original/authors' survey for testing the tendency to employ manipulation tactics as well as a MACH-IV questionnaire (Christie, Geis, 1970) for measuring Machiavellian...

As long as psychological researchers have worked toward characterizing and understanding human personality, the belief has existed that individual differences can yield important information that can aid in the prediction of specific behaviors or outcomes. Childhood personality offers the potential to better understand, even predict, outcomes such as academic achievement, success in interperson...

BACKGROUND Machiavellianism is a personality trait characterized by emotional detachment and tendency to manipulate others to achieve one's own goal. It is presumed that people high in Machiavellianism would more likely choose business-related occupations, whereas low Machiavellians would prefer helping professions, therefore medical professionals are expected to be low-Machs. SUBJECTS AND ME...

The Dark Triad (i.e., psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) is a cluster of socially aversive personality traits that account for the “darker” side of human behavior. While traditional views have focused on the maladaptive nature of these traits, recent work in the field of evolutionary psychology suggests these traits may be adaptive in terms of self-serving behavior. The Dark Triad t...

Modern dating platforms have given rise to new dating and sexual behaviors. In the current study, we examine predictors of sending unsolicited explicit images, a particularly underexplored online sexual behavior. The aim of the current study was to explore the utility of dark personality traits (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism) and self-rated mate value in predicting...