Development and Validation of the Super-Short Form of the Five Factor Machiavellianism Inventory (FFMI-SSF)

Abstract

Previous findings have showed that existing measures of Machiavellianism often fail to distinguish Machiavellianism from another construct in the Dark Triad (i.e., psychopathy) and do not align with theoretical descriptions. To rectify this, a 52-item measure (i.e., FFMI) was developed to measure traits that are the most theoretically relevant to Machiavellianism using the Five-Factor model of personality. The aim of the current study is to develop a briefer version of the FFMI that can be used in situations in which efficiency is critical. Using data collected from three samples (total N = 1,945), we developed a 15-item measure of Machiavellianism (i.e., FFMI-SSF) that was shown to be similarly effective as the FFMI in capturing core personality traits relevant to Machiavellianism and distinguishing Machiavellianism from psychopathy and narcissism.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data availability statement 

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.