What is a Machiavellianism test?

The word comes from Niccolò Machiavelli, whose book The Prince (1532) described power and politics as they are rather than as they should be. In 1970 psychologists Richard Christie and Florence Geis published Studies in Machiavellianism, which treated the idea as a measurable personality style built on three themes: the tactics people use with others, their views of human nature, and their attitude to morality when means and ends collide. Later researchers grouped Machiavellianism with narcissism and psychopathy in the so-called dark triad (Paulhus and Williams, 2002), but in everyday life it describes a continuum on which everyone sits somewhere.

How this test works

Inspired by those three themes, this test uses 24 original, everyday statements (not items from any published scale) and takes about 8 minutes. It places you on three dimensions:

Style: strategic and indirect, or open and direct.
View of people: wary and alert to self-interest, or trusting and generous with good faith.
Goals: pragmatic and results-first, or principled and means-first.

The combination gives one of 8 profiles, from the Strategist to the Transparent Idealist. Every pole has real strengths: strategic people often make skilled negotiators, wary people spot risks early, and trusting, principled people build lasting cooperation. Rate each statement honestly by how you usually act, not how you think you should.

What it does not measure

An honest note: despite popular names like a cunning or malice test, no questionnaire can measure how good or bad a person is, and there is no such thing as a reliable malice percentage. This test describes your interpersonal style. It is a tool for self-reflection, not a clinical assessment and not a dark triad diagnosis.