The Prince By Niccolo Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism is the name of a ruthless and selfish approach to management. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote 'The Prince' in 1513, during the turbulent days of the Renaissance Medici’s, as a set of pragmatic instructions to a new prince on how to gain and retain power. The originality of his ideas has been challenged and shown to go back at least to the Athenians, yet the influence of Machiavelli's words still rings around the world. Hence, Machiavellians are manipulative and deceitful individuals willing to utilize any strategy or behavior needed to attain their goals. Little is known about the effects of these personal characteristics that might result in more competitive, antisocial, and even unethical behavior. This study explores the relationship

According to the “Social Brain Hypothesis” social or Machiavellian intelligence is positively correlated with the ability to comply with social norms when punishment will follow from non-compliance, and to violate social norms or rules when no punishment will follow or punishment can be avoided (e.g. by cheating)(Berendsen et al., 2011). In the same line of reasoning, altruistic behavior, i.e. behavior that does not benefit the altruistic individual in any way, should be negatively correlated with Machiavellian intelligence since this behavior is not driven by self-interested. Indeed, as Jackson & Grace (2015) have demonstrated, a high measure of Machiavellian intelligence is associated with less altruistic behavior. A person with a high degree of Machiavellian intelligence acts more self-interested and less

Machiavellianism is one of three personality traits referred to as the Dark Triad – including subclinical psychopathy and subclinical narcissism – which have been studied as distinct but overlapping dimensions of exploitative personality (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Together, the Dark Triad traits have a shared tendency towards callousness, emotional coldness, and aggressive, manipulative behavior (Czibor et al., 2017)
This approach is pragmatic, doing what is necessary to achieve goals, and is an honest description of what many people do. What is described now as Machiavellianism is more about individual action rather than that of a person in political office, although politicians are often still described as being Machiavellian. It is not a defined personality disorder, although the extreme forms of it may be classified as Antisocial Personality Disorder. The common thread that runs through these is a selfish view that cares little for other people and will allow or enact harm to others in the pursuit of personal