Politician personality, Machiavellianism, and political skill as predictors of performance ratings in political roles

Abstract

This study conceptualizes politicians as political workers. It describes a multimethod study with two aims: (1) to determine whether politicians share a latent mental model of performance in political roles and (2) to test hypothesized relationships between politician self‐rated characteristics (i.e., extroversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, Machiavellianism, and political skill) and received performance ratings from political colleagues and officers. Two hundred and thirty‐one local politicians provided self‐ratings on a political performance questionnaire developed following a role analysis, and standardized measures of personality. One hundred and eighty‐five also received performance ratings from colleagues (n = 749) and officers (n = 729). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of self‐ and received performance ratings revealed five latent factors: Resilience (RS), Politicking, Analytical Skills (AS), Representing People, and Relating to Others. Regression analyses found that neuroticism and conscientiousness contribute to received ratings of RS, and neuroticism contributes to received ratings of AS. Practitioner points As political roles require political work, we argue there is potential to use research and practice from I/O psychology to improve politician performance. The existence of shared latent constructs of performance provides a basis for differentiated criterion assessment in political roles. Evidence that individual differences contribute to political performance can be used to shape support activities for individuals in elected roles.

Position, Preference and Personality: A Microlevel Explanation of Negativity in Day‐To‐Day Politics

“…People who are open to experiences can be described as autonomous, curious, and have a preference for novelty (Gosling et al, 2003). While these four traits are related to various types of political behavior and political roles (see e.g., Best, 2011;Silvester, Wyatt, & Randall, 2013), I do not specifically expect a correlation between these traits and a person's willingness to demonstrate the weaknesses of others. We can expect, however, that negativity is related to "agreeableness"-to low scores of agreeableness in particular.…”

The Importance of Definitional and Temporal Issues in the Study of Resilience

“…Our review also largely corroborated the conclusions of other authors that temporal issues represent an underdeveloped area in the literature (Britt et al, ; King et al, ; Kossek & Perrigino, ). Many of the studies we examined were either cross‐sectional in nature or included multiple waves of data collection without any repeated measurements of the same variable (e.g., Arnold & Clark, ; Carmeli et al, ; Dollwet & Reichard, ; Hystad et al, ; Liu et al, ; Patterson et al, 2014; Roche et al, ; Shin et al, ; Silvester, Wyatt, & Randall, ; van Doorn & Hülsheger, ). Other studies were minimally longitudinal in that certain variables were repeatedly measured on two separate occasions (e.g., Crane & Searle, ; Luthans et al ; Saksvik‐Lehouillier et al, ; Shoss et al, ).…”

Donald Trump, Populism, and the Age of Extremes: Comparing the Personality Traits and Campaigning Styles of Trump and Other Leaders Worldwide

“…Machiavellian individuals are “cynical, unprincipled, believe in interpersonal manipulation as the key for life success, and behave accordingly” (Furnham, Richards, and Paulhus , 201). Evidence suggests that Machiavellians might easily suffer from a tarnished image (Ricks and Fraedrich , 204) and can be judged as having lower integrity and trustworthiness (Silvester, Wyatt, and Randall ).…”