Malicious mind readers? A meta-analysis on Machiavellianism and cognitive and affective empathy

This meta-analysis investigated how the antagonistic personality trait Machiavellianism (Mach) relates to cognitive and affective empathy. Due to the role of manipulation in Mach, previous research argued that Mach should go along with higher empathic ability but found negative effects very consistently. Thus, some scholars argued that individuals with high scores in Mach had empathic deficits. The current meta-analysis (70 studies, 76 samples, and 232 effect sizes) challenged both perspectives by investigating bivariate and multivariate relations between Mach, self-reported cognitive empathy, cognitive empathic skills, and affective empathy. Further, we tested if gender distributions, student samples, and different utilized Mach scales accounted for differences across studies (i.e., moderated those). Bivariate analyses revealed inverse correlations of Mach with all facets of empathy (rho s from -0.10 to -0.36). The relations with self-reported and performance-based cognitive empathy almost dissolved when controlling for affective empathy. Neither of the proposed moderators significantly explained differences across studies. In general, studies with a high percentage of men and those comprising nonstudents revealed more diverse correlations than studies with a large proportion of women and studies that exclusively recruited students. The results suggest low affective empathy in Mach but contradict both the empathic deficits - and the "skilled mind reader" - perspectives.