Machiavellianism, Perceived Partner Support, and Marital Quality: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Analysis

Zhang Guilin; Fang Xiaoyi; Hou Juan

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250521

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2025, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (5) : 1267-1279. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250521

Clinical Psychology & Consulting

Machiavellianism, Perceived Partner Support, and Marital Quality: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Analysis

Zhang Guilin¹, Fang Xiaoyi², Hou Juan¹

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Abstract

Objective:Accumulating evidences have found the association between personality and intimate relationship. Specifically, Machiavellianism is a strategically oriented, callous, manipulative, and amoral personality trait. Previous research has found that Machiavellianism can predict deception in romantic relationships, lower relationship commitment, and a preference for short-term relationships. However, in short-term relationships, individuals higher in Machiavellianism often received higher evaluations. Given these findings, in marital relationships, the shortcomings of Machiavellian individuals may tend to become apparent through prolonged interaction, and then affect their marital quality. According to the vulnerability-stress adaptation model, personality as a vulnerability factor can influence the quality of the relationship through the process of interpersonal interaction. Mutual support is one of the significant factors influencing marital quality, as well as a crucial interpersonal interaction between spouses. Therefore, perceived partner support may mediate the impact of Machiavellianism on marital quality. According to the interdependence theory, spouses influence and depend on each other, and they also have individual differences in traits, perceptions of partner support, and marital quality. However, there is limited research that treats husbands or wives as an integral unit respectively in data analysis or investigates such questions. As a result, this study aims to examine how the husband’s and wife’s individual Machiavellianism influences their own (actor effects) and the partner’s (partner effects) marital quality. Furthermore, we test the mediating role of perceived partner support and the gender differences in both actor effects and partner effects.
Methods:A questionnaire survey was conducted with 674 couples from Beijing and Tianjin, recruited through acquaintances, online project advertisements, and community collaborations. Upon arrival at the laboratory, both spouses independently completed the questionnaire under the guidance of the experimenter. The mean age of the participants was 41.72 years (SD=13.37 years), with the husbands averaging 42.32 years (SD=13.35 years) and the wives averaging 41.13 years (SD=13.35 years). The study used SPSS 26.0 for data management and analysis, and then used Amos 24.0 to construct an actor-partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM), which is appropriate for analyzing non-independent data. Phantom variables were used in the structural equation model to estimate the k, which was used to determine the specific pattern of the APIMeM. The bootstrap method was used to estimate the confidence interval of the k and the mediating role of perceived partner support in the impact of Machiavellianism on marital quality.
Results:(1) only Machiavellianism of husbands negatively predicted couples’ maritol quality. (2) Perceived partner support mediated the relationship between husbands’ Machiavellianism and both husbands’ and wives’ marital quality. (3) In the impact of Machiavellianism on perceived partner support, husbands conform to an actor pattern, that is, husbands’ perceived partner support is affected only by husbands themselves. (4) In the impact of perceived partner support on marital quality, both husbands and wives conform to the pattern that in between actor-only and couple models, that is, marital quality of couples is affected by both themselves and their partners, but their own perceived partner support plays a more important role. These results contribute to understanding the underlying mechanism between Machiavellianism and marital satisfaction from a dyadic perspective, and the mediating role of perceived partner support in the marital relationship.
Conclusions:The present study found that Machiavellianism has a negative impact on marriage. The findings indicate that the perceived support plays an essential role in the marital relationship. This influence mechanism differs by gender. Specifically, husbands’ Machiavellianism affects both their own and their partner’s perceived partner support and marital quality. It enhances our understanding of the mechanisms by which the personality trait of Machiavellianism affects marriage, which is a long-term relationship. The findings also demonstrate the significance that including both husbands and wives in one study, which could enhance our understanding of the mutual influence among family members.

Key words

Machiavellianism / received partner support / quality of marriage / actor-partner interdependence mediation model / dyadic pattern

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Zhang Guilin, Fang Xiaoyi, Hou Juan. Machiavellianism, Perceived Partner Support, and Marital Quality: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Analysis[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2025, 48(5): 1267-1279 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250521

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