Do All Roads Lead to Rome? The Moderating Role of Culture and Age in Predicting Construal Level on Machiavellianism / Bütün Yollar Roma’ya Mı Çıkar? Makyavelizmde Yorumlama Seviyesinin Belirlenmesinde Kültür ve Çağın Aracı Rolü

Christie and Geis (1970) define Machiavellianism as a personality trait that results in extensive manipulative behavior, insincerity and callousness. Previous research focused on how culture and several demographic variables relate to Machiavellianism. However, no research has yet to examine how culture and demographics (age) moderate the relation between Machiavellian tendencies and the mind-set of an action. This study examines the moderating effect of culture and age on individuals’ Machiavellian thoughts by the chronic aspect of Construal Level Theory (Liberman and Trope, 1998; Trope and Liberman, 2010) across people from different cultures and from different age groups. In the first part of the study, culture is used as a moderator. The results indicated that American participants showed more (versus less) Machiavellian thoughts then Turkish participants when a concrete construal is adapted (versus an abstract construal). Second part of the study focused on the age as the moderator. The results showed that younger participants (versus older) are more Machiavellian when they have a concrete construal (versus an abstract construal). Consequently; the results indicate a strong distinction when a detailed mindset is adapted where the events are perceived as subcategorized and concrete. On the other hand, when an abstract mind-set is adapted, events are perceived as more vague therefore differences between cultures and age began to diminish. Implications of the findings to the literature are discussed