Machiavellianism and Business Education

Summary.-The Mach IV test was administered to 206 undergraduate university students to compare business with nonbusiness students and to compare business students majoring in diEferent fields, such as Marketing, Human Resource Management, and Accounting and Finance. Analysis partially supported the common stereotype that business students, and marketing students in particular, are more Machiavellian than are nonbusiness students. Research on Machiavellianism indicates that individuals with a strong Machiavellian personality tend to manipulate more, win more, and persuade more than those with a weaker Machiavellian personality (Christie & Geis, 1970). The Machiavellian personality is a popular stereotype of business behavior in general and of marketing practitioners in particular. However, research examining Machiavehanism and education in management has produced mixed results (e.g., Hunt & Chonko, 1984; Meising & Preble, 1985; Siegel, 1973; Wertheim, Widom, & Wortzel, 1978). Data from a sample of 206 third-year university students were used to test two hypotheses. The first was that business students are more Machiavellian than nonbusiness students. The second hypothesis was that, consistent with popular stereotypes, students majoring in different fields within business would f t = 3.24); however, there was no significant difference between arts students (n = 60, M = 89.93, SD = 13.02) and business students (t = 0.22). The scores reported here are generally con