Challenging the “Empathic Deficits Hypothesis” of Machiavellianism: Lack of motivation rather than lack of ability

Research on the exploitative and manipulative personality trait Machiavellianism often entertains an empathic deficit hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, aversive tendencies related to Machiavellianism are attributable to poor ability to see things from a (potential) victim’s perspective — endorsing a somewhat autistic view of individuals high in Machiavellianism. We argue that Machiavellianism is characterized by low compassion for others but intact perspective-taking. In a preregistered study (n = 455) and a non-preregistered, conceptual replication (n = 460), we challenged the empathic deficit hypothesis by investigating relationships of Machiavellianism with cognitive (i.e., recognizing others’ emotional states) and affective empathy (i.e., vicariously experiencing others emotional states). The obtained correlations were compared to respective relations of autistic tendencies, a construct embodying deficient cognitive but intact affective empathy. By and large, Machiavellianism was more strongly negatively related to affective empathy, whereas autistic tendencies were more strongly negatively related to cognitive empathy. These patterns underline misanthropy and selfishness inherent to Machiavellianism and militate against the empathic deficit hypothesis. Pathways for future research were outlined, such as the necessity to support the present findings through behaviorally oriented data sources.