Machiavellianism as Tough-Mindedness

Summary Eysenck's Inventory of Social Attitudes was presented together with the 20 Mach TV items to a heterogeneous sample of 206 white American Ss. It was hypothesized that Eysenck's T dimension possesses conceptual validity and that previous studies have inadequately operationalized this variable. The present paper was designed to test the hypothesis that the Machiavellianism scale is a better measure of tough-mindedness than the scale devised by Eysenck. Factor analysis indicated two orthogonal factors best defined as social conservatism and Machiavellianism. A correlational analysis based upon total radicalism (R) scale scores suggested that R does seem to accord reasonably well with current conceptions of economic radicalism. In turn, Mach scores but not tough-mindedness (T) scores are independent of R. These findings, together with the moderate correlation between Mach and T support the authors' contention that Eysenck's second political attitudinal factor, tough-mindedness, is more appropriately defined by Mach scores than by the T scale.