On Different Relationships between Dogmatism and Machiavellianism among Male and Female College Students

Abstract

A brief dogmatism scale and the Kiddie Machiavellianism Scale were answered by 112 male and 83 female students. The men's Mach scores were higher than the women's. The correlation between dogmatism and Mach— was not significant in either sex; in contrast, the correlation between dogmatism and Mach+ was significant for both sexes, r being significantly greater for the women than for the men. Agreement response set therefore seemed to be involved in the correlations between these scales for both sexes, though more for the women than the men. Factor by factor correlations indicated that for the men, the main other overlap between these two scales was an unflattering view of people, as hypothesized by Christie and Geis; for the women, however, the overlap between the scales was more extensive. The interpretation of this sex difference suggested the possibility that women may be more Machiavellian than their scores suggest and may even be more Machiavellian than men. though their scores typically suggest the opposite.