The relationship of patterns of creativity and Machiavellianism to leadership, self-actualization, authoritarianism, and alienation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate patterns of creativity and Machiavellianism and how they relate to leadership, self-actualization, authoritarianism, and alienation. Creativity and Machiavellianism served as the independent variables and the others as dependent variables. The relationship between the two independent variables was (1) hypothesized to be not significantly different from zero. Since subjects can score high on both personality measures, or high on one and low on the other, or low on both, hypotheses were derived in regard to personality patterns of creativity and Machiavellianism. It was hypothesized that, (2) subjects who scored high on both creativity and Machiavellianism would score significantly higher on leadership when compared with subjects from the other 3 contingency groups, (3) subjects who scored high on creativity but low on Machiavellianism would score significantly higher on self-actualization when compared with subjects from the other 3 contingency groups, (4) subjects who scored low on creativity but high on Machiavellianism would score significantly higher on authoritarianism when compared with the other 3 contingency groups and, (5) subjects who scored low on creativity and low on Machiavellianism would score significantly higher on alienation when compared with subjects of the other 3 contingency groups. One hundred-and-twenty first year students from an introductory psychology class participated in the study. The subjects were assessed in groups of six, in two sessions, for the administration of seven paper and pencil tests: creativity, Machiavellianism (two forms), leadership, self-actualization, authoritarianism, and alienation. Subjects were divided into the 4 contingency groups using the median of the creativity and the median of the Machiavellianism score disttibutions as cut-off points. The results obtained showed that the relationship between creativity and Machiavellianism was not significant. Orthogonal comparisons of the group means on leadership, self-actualization, authoritarianism, and alienation failed to demonstrate any significant differences as predicted.