Machiavelli Test

A very entertaining personality test which determines whether or not you have faith in humanity.

Take the test HERE

As for me...

"Your score was 51 of 100. 

This puts you in the category of the low Machs, people who will hold out for the goodness of the world and avoid manipulation. Not the people Machiavelli would approve of. 

A graph of how others who have taken this have scores is below. These scores should not be taken as population norms though, the people who seek out tests of machivellianism on the internet are most likely not representative."

Now what exactly is Machiavellianism, and where did it originate from?

Machiavellianism

It is "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft of in general conduct", deriving from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote II Principe (The Prince) and other works. The word has a similar use in modern psychology where it describes one of the dark triad personalities, characterised by a duplicitous interpersonal style associated with cynical beliefs and pragmatic morality. "Machiavellian" (and variants) as a word became very popular in the late 16th century in English, though "Machiavellianism"  itself is first cited by the Oxford English Dictionary from 1626.

Niccolò Machiavelli

Machiavellianism is also a term that some social and personality psychologists use to describe a person's tendency to be unemotional, and therefore able to detach themself from conventional morality and hence to deceive and manipulate others. In the 1960's, Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis developed a test for measuring a person's level of Machiavellianism. Their Mach - IV test, a twenty-statement personality survery, became the standard self-assessment tool of Machiavellianism. People scoring high on the scale (high Machs) tend to endorse statements such as "Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so," but not ones like, "Most people are basically good and kind". Using their scale, Christie and Geis conducted multiple experimental tests that showed that the interpersonal strategies and behaviour of "High Machs" and "Low Machs" differ. Their basic results have been widely replicated. Measured on the Mach - IV scale, males are, on average, slightly more Machiavellian than females. 

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