Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1982, Vol. 43, No. 6, 1293-1305 Copyright 1982 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/82/4306-1293S00.75 Machiavellian Beliefs and Personality: Construct Invalidity of the Machiavellianism Dimension John E. Hunter Michigan State University David W. Gerbing Baylor University Franklin J. Boster Arizona State University Christie and Geis implicitly assume that the component beliefs of Machiavelli's philosophy are linked to other personality traits only as mediated by a central dimension of Machiavellianism. This assertion was cast in the form of a causal model and shown to be false. Confirmatory factor analysis identified four com- ponent beliefs: flattery, rejection of honesty, rejection of the belief that people are moral, and the belief that people are vicious and untrustworthy. These beliefs differentially relate to personality traits including dogmatism, self-esteem, and locus of control. For example, dogmatism correlates almost perfectly with cy- nicism but does not correlate with rejection of honesty. A path analysis supports a developmental theory in which the key events are the development of cynicism and the consequent adoption of a competitive stance toward others. The path analysis shows that some of the component beliefs are causally antecedent to variables such as competitiveness, whereas other component beliefs are causally dependent on the same variables. Thus, the Machiavellianism total score cannot enter into a logically consistent causal relation with these variables. Machiavelli advocated an extreme pre- scription for success in a socially competitive and status-oriented society. In his 1513 trea- tise, The Prince, he prescribed that a ruler's behavior be cruel, exploitive, and deceitful. He recommended that a ruler perceive other people as vicious, lazy, and untrustworthy. Whether a person accepts or rejects such val- ues should be related to individual differ- ences on many aspects of social behavior and personality. Indeed, Christie and Geis (1970) and many subsequent researchers (e.g., Har- rell & Hartnagel, 1976; Cooper & Peterson, 1980) have amassed a wealth of evidence showing this to be true. This evidence, however, has all been coded in a very particular manner; personality and behavior have been related to a dimension of Machiavellianism that is usually measured by the Likert Mach IV scale or the forced- choice Mach V scale. That is, following the lead of Christie and Geis (1970), most re- searchers have conceptualized Machiavelli's large set of related but potentially distinct Requests for reprints should be sent to John E. Hunter, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824. beliefs as a unidimensional representation that is essentially a count of the number of such beliefs (i.e., items) that the person ac- cepts. Has there been a price paid for such simplification? The contention of the present article is that the concept of Machiavellian- ism as a causal agent (i.e., as a construct de- nned by a unidimensional continuum) has distorted the scientific picture of the rela- tionship between social philosophy and so- cial action. This distortion has resulted in the underestimation of the size of correlations between particular Machiavellian beliefs with behaviors and particular personality traits. Consider Rokeach's (1960) concept of dogmatism, the contrast between people who are rigidly fanatical and people who are flex- ibly eclectic in their approach to life. Since Rokeach predicted that dogmatists would hold very cynical views of other people (Steininger & Eisenberg, 1976), he predicted that dogmatic people should accept some of Machiavelli's prescriptions, such as the be- lief that other people are vicious .and lazy. However, Rokeach did not predict that dog- matic people would be avowed liars, much less cruel or exploitive. Many religious people would be dogmatic (and cynical in their view 1293