Machiavellianism and the Manipulation of Children as a Tactic in Child Custody Disputes: The MMS Scale

ABSTRACT

One of the problems that arise in the Family Courts is the constant complaints of one parent about the other (judicial harassment) up to the children’s age of majority or, in some extreme cases, even harming the children to attack the parent who usually has custody. This behavior is typical of Machiavellian progenitors, but this connection has hardly been studied in the literature. The aim of this study was to design and assess an instrument for measuring the Machiavellian manipulation of children, a crucial technique in forensic contexts. A 12-category observation instrument, the Machiavellian Manipulation Scale (MMS), was designed and analyzed, using a sample of 90 separated or divorced Spanish fathers and 90 mothers. The reliability, construct validity (five factors were obtained), and concurrent validity (correlated to the items on Christie and Geis´s Mach-IV scale) of the instrument were adequate. Differences between fathers and mothers on the scale were examined. The possible future lines of investigation are discussed, as the determination of Machiavellianism of one of the parents can be a good predictor of manipulation of the children to attack and take revenge on the other parent.

KEYWORDS:

• Machiavellianism
• dark triad
• observation scales
• parental alienation
• parental alienation syndrome

Declaration of interest statement

• Funding details: No institution or person has provided funding for this work.

• Disclosure statement: There are no financial disclosures from any authors.

• Data availability statement and data deposition: The data of this work is available to any researcher who requires it by writing an e-mail to the corresponding author.

• According to the ethical normative, the questionnaire used was attached to a consent form that explained the purpose of the study, specifying the task for the participants, assuring anonymity, and reporting how to contact researchers to answer any questions or exercise their rights to delete the information provided.

• The manuscript is original, not previously published, and not under concurrent consideration elsewhere.

• The data were collected in a manner consistent with ethical standards for the treatment of human subjects.

• There is no existence of any published work using the same data (in whole or in part) as was used in the present manuscript.

• We take public responsibility for the content.

• There is enough detail for reviewers to assess whether data presented constitute original use and unique knowledge and insights.

• We have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of our sample.

• There is no supplemental material being submitting for the online version of the article.

• All the nominees agreed to be signatories of this article.