(2022) Science and education, 4, 57-63. Odessa.

Olga Sannikova,
Doctor of Psychology, Рrofessor,
Head of General and Differential Psychology Department,
The State Institution “South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushynsky”,
4, Fontanska Str., Odesa, Ukraine
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3961-2103

INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES OF THE EMOTIONAL ACUMEN IN PEOPLE PRONE TO MACHIAVELLIANISM

The given article is aimed at presenting the results of the research on the individual psychological features of the emotional acumen in people who are characterized by a non-clinical form of Machiavellianism. The urgency of the problem is related to the increase in various psycho-emotional and personal disorders caused by the social and political situation in our country – the war. The concepts of Machiavellianism and emotional acumen are theoretically considered as a complex personality property that provides an accurate, adequate reflection of the emotional world of another person based on the recognition of signals of his expression and behavior. It is clarified that emotional acumen is aimed at recognizing and understanding the feelings of another person in order to ascertain and diagnose the emotional states of others without interfering in their course, without external influence on them, and does not affect the regulation of other people’s emotions and the results of such influence. The author analyzes the structure of emotional acumen, the component composition of its indicators, which includes: intentional, emotional, cognitive, conative (behavioral), reflexive (self-control and regulatory) indicators, etc. Machiavellianism in modern psychology is considered mainly as a person’s tendency to use manipulative tactics to achieve their goals against the background of pragmatic morality and cynicism. The assumption about the presence of individual psychological specificity of emotional acumen in people who differ in manifestations of Machiavellianism was empirically tested. The leading methods of this research are the theoretical and methodological analysis of the literature and the empirical study of the ratio of indicators of selected personality traits, which are relevant to the problem and goal of the study. Significant positive and negative correlations were established between the indicators of emotional acumen (ability to recognize emotions) and indicators of the selected personality type. It has been proved that individuals who are prone to Machiavellianism are characterized by high values of the indicator of intentionality (a focus on recognizing the inner emotional world of other people) and a predictive indicator, based on the cognitive component of emotional acumen against the background of low values of other indicators. Representatives of the group of people with low values of the MAC indicator are characterized by a more «smoothed» profile with a tendency to a high level of all indicators of emotional acumen. It has been empirically proven that the tendency to Machiavellianism is characterized by specific manifestations of indicators of emotional insight and the peculiarities of their combinations (combinations).

personality, emotional acumen, structure, Machiavellianism, manipulation, individual psychological differences.

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