Machiavellian people: 8 traits that characterize them

What are Machiavellian individuals like and what attitudes characterize them?

Machiavellianism is a concept that refers to a distinction between strategies used to achieve certain ends and morality. The famous phrase "the end justifies the means" captures well the essence of this idea..

However, Machiavellianism need not be seen only as the political doctrine it originally was: one can also use this concept to explore people's behavioral patterns and, ultimately, recognize certain characteristics that define Machiavellian people.

The Machiavellian personality in 8 traits

There is no single criterion by which we can classify the different personality types: on the one hand we have the 8 personality types according to Carl Jung and the Myers-Briggs Indicator, which are so ambiguous in their categories and concepts that they are not useful, and on the other hand we have personality tests with more scientific backing such as the 16pf.

But, beyond these personality tests that can be applied to any person, it is possible to detect some tendencies and generalities that define very specific personality types. In this case we will see which are the characteristics of Machiavellian people.

1. Reification of people

Machiavellian people may be Machiavellian because they tend to empathize less than usual with other people. That is to say, they present certain traits of sociopathy, although these need not be very extreme.

Since they do not connect emotionally with others, they can interact with the rest as if everyone who is not themselves were resources to be squeezed at some point. This creates a division between subject (self) and object (others).

2. Ease in detecting other people's weaknesses

Machiavellian people are adept at detecting the weaknesses of each other's personality and exploiting them to their own advantage.. For example, someone who values his public image extremely highly will probably be used by a Machiavellian person to rise socially by gaining his friendship, and at the same time he will find key moments to force the other person to behave in a certain way to maintain his good social image without making it look like blackmail.

3. The tendency to manipulative strategies

This point is derived from the previous one. Because Machiavellian people have little empathy and devote much of their attention to detecting other people's weaknesses, they are constantly devising ways to manipulate others for their own benefit, they are constantly devising ways to manipulate others for their own benefit.. That is to say, they do something similar to what an engineer programming a robot would do: create the conditions for the other to move towards a goal that one has imposed on him or her.

4. Impulse control

Unlike what occurs in cases of sociopathy, one of the features of the psychopathic tendency of Machiavellian people consists in an almost total control over what is constantly being done.. A good part of their actions respond to a plan, which constitutes this strategy separated from morality.

This characteristic is also associated with high intelligence.

5. They have ambitious goals

Machiavellian people can spend a lot of time and effort scheming how to take advantage of what others do, and therefore set ambitious goals that are of great value to them. After all, no one plans to achieve something simple that can easily be bought at the next store..

6. Focus on the long term

Related to the previous section, this one refers to the fact that the goals of this type of people are located in a distant place. are located in a distant place in time.. It is the price to pay for setting important goals that can be achieved only by making a series of complex actions to be developed.

Moreover, this characteristic distinguishes Machiavellian people from impulsive people who are accustomed to giving in to their desires at the expense of the welfare of others.

7. Lack of remorse

When Machiavellian people do something that harms others, they do not feel bad about it, because it is considered to be a consequence of the action plan that has been developed.. That is, they do not even have to think about it, and usually ignore that facet of reality that they have helped to build directly. At the end of the day, little consideration for the welfare of others is almost a habit, something to which they are accustomed.

8. They constantly develop plans

As Machiavellian people are predisposed to cause discomfort in others without suffering for it, it can be said that they have a range of options and decisions that in the rest of the people are constrained by the morality that guides their actions. That is why they exploit this characteristic of theirs by scheming and doing what others avoid doing so as not to fall into a cognitive dissonance that would undermine their self-esteem.