Machiavellianism and Economic Opportunism.

Yves Thépaut (1) , Maria Sakalaki (2) , Clive Richardson (3)

1 CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne
2 Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences
3 Department of Economic and Regional Development

This study explores the relationship between 2 defecting strategies based on the manipulation of information; namely, Machiavellianism and economic opportunism. There are 3 main hypotheses that were confirmed in questionnaire investigations among samples of 191 and 113 university students in Athens. Machiavellianism was positively correlated with economic opportunism, shown by a statistically highly significant positive correlation between scores on scales measuring these 2 concepts. In situations of asymmetric information where they held the advantage, high Machs adopted more opportunistic strategies, showing the greatest inclination to maximize their own profit. High Machs showed less trust in potential economic partners, whom they regarded as untrustworthy maximizers.

Cette recherche vise à explorer les relations entre deux stratégies de défection basées sur la manipulation de l'information, à savoir le machiavélisme et l'opportunisme économique. Dans les situations d'asymétrie d'information où les sujets ont un avantage informationnel, les « Higth Machs » adoptent des stratégies plus opportunistes qui montrent leur inclinaison plus grande à maximiser leurs profits. Par ailleurs,, ils manifestent moins de confiance envers les partenaires économiques potentiels qu'ils regardent ou envisagent comme maximisateurs non fiables.

Mots clés: asymétrie d'information; machiavellianisme; stratégies opportunistes.; stratégies opportunistes

Domaines: Psychologie; Economies et finances

Yves Thépaut, Maria Sakalaki, Clive Richardson. Machiavellianism and Economic Opportunism.. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2007, 37 (6), pp.1181-1190. ⟨10.1111/j.1559-1816.2007.00208.x⟩. ⟨halshs-00442018⟩