Open AccessAbusing Good Intentions
Author(s) -
Tamás Bereczkei,
Zsolt Péter Szabó,
Andrea Czibor
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
sage open
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.357
H-Index - 32
ISSN - 2158-2440
DOI - 10.1177/2158244015593119
Subject(s) - exploit , public good , public goods game , machiavellianism , set (abstract data type) , profit (economics) , microeconomics , social psychology , economics , psychology , computer science , computer security , personality , psychopathy , programming language
The present study aims to understand how Machiavellians switch fromone kind of response to another in different circumstances to maximize their profit. Weset up a specific experimental paradigm that involved both a cooperative and competitiveversion of a public goods game. We found that Machiavellianism accounts for the totalamount of money paid by the players (N = 144) across five rounds in the cooperative butnot in the competitive game. Compared with the others, individuals with higher scores onMach scale contributed less to the public goods in the cooperative condition, but nodifference was found in the competitive condition. Finally, this relationship wasinfluenced by the sequence of the games. These results indicate that Machiavelliansskillfully evaluate social environments and strive to exploit those with abundantcontributions to public goods