Machiavellianism and the Manipulation of Children as a Tactic in Child Custody Disputes: The MMS Scale.

One of the problems that arise in the Family Courts is the constant complaints of one parent about the other (judicial harassment) up to the children's age of majority or, in some extreme cases, even harming the children to attack the parent who usually has custody. This behavior is typical of Machiavellian progenitors, but this connection has hardly been studied in the literature. The aim of this study was to design and assess an instrument for measuring the Machiavellian manipulation of children, a crucial technique in forensic contexts. A 12-category observation instrument, the Machiavellian Manipulation Scale (MMS), was designed and analyzed, using a sample of 90 separated or divorced Spanish fathers and 90 mothers. The reliability, construct validity (five factors were obtained), and concurrent validity (correlated to the items on Christie and Geis´s Mach-IV scale) of the instrument were adequate. Differences between fathers and mothers on the scale were examined. The possible future lines of investigation are discussed, as the determination of Machiavellianism of one of the parents can be a good predictor of manipulation of the children to attack and take revenge on the other parent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]