Correlates of machiavellianism among religious leaders

Pages: 37-40
Priyanka Samuel (Institute of Mental Health Sweekaar Academy of ehabilitation Sciences Secunderabad, Telangana)
Smita Pandey (Institute of Behavior Science Gujarat Forensic Sciences University Gandhinagar, Gujarat)
Komila Parthi (Department of Psychology, DAV College, Chandigarh)

Religious leaders play an important role for any religious clan. These religious leaders usually have high importance in guiding and advising the particular religious members of the group. It is very important that the religious leaders must be sensitive to the needs of the religious members and flexible to provide advice. But it has been seen that if the leader is high on Machiavellianism, he will be more manipulative and focus on his personal advantage than the real welfare of people. The present study aims at investigating Machiavellian traits in religious leaders and the relationship of Machiavellianism with life satisfaction, altruism and resilience in them. The sample was a purposive sample and were selected as per the availability of the clergymen. The results showed a negative correlation of Machiavellianism with life satisfaction and altruism indicating that individuals high on Machiavellianism are low on both life satisfaction and altruism. No significant relationship was found between Machiavellianism and resilience. Significant correlation was found between altruism and life satisfaction.