Personality can explain why some CEOs earn higher salaries

WHAT MACHIAVELLIANISM MEANS TODAY

University of Arkansas

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Sam M. Walton College of Business professor of strategic management Jason Ridge.

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Credit: Whit Pruitt

The lucrative pay for American CEOs often makes headlines. In 1965, CEO compensation was 22 times higher than the pay of an average worker. In recent years, CEOs have been paid 344 times more than the people who work for them.

The personality of a CEO is one factor driving the increase in executive compensation, according to a new study from a team of researchers that includes Sam M. Walton College of Business strategic management professor Jason Ridge.

Leaders with a Machiavellian personality, someone who is self-interested, unemotional and manipulative, earn more than $1.5 million a year in additional pay. While the CEOs benefit, often the companies also come out ahead with Machiavellian leaders.

The paper “Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Machiavellianism and Executive Pay” was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Past research on executive compensation has mainly focused on the organization’s structure, such as who sits on the compensation committee or how the board operates. Little research has been done on how a CEO’s personality affects their pay.

“The scarcity of research on such traits is notable given the extensive literature on CEO pay,” the authors write.

WHAT MACHIAVELLIANISM MEANS TODAY

In the early 16th century, the Italian diplomat and philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli wrote a political treatise called The Prince. The work made Machiavelli’s name synonymous with ruthlessness and amorality in the pursuit of a goal.

Today, psychologists use Machiavellianism, often shortened to “Mach,” as a term to describe people who are manipulative, unemotional, self-interested and see social interactions as contests to be won.

The researchers could not directly interview CEOs to determine if they had Machiavellian personalities.

“Executives are notoriously difficult to measure and do any research with. They’re busy people who are not going to fill out a survey or have time for an interview,” Ridge said.

The researchers created short video clips of CEOs, taken from speeches and media interviews. A panel of psychologists then watched the clips and scored the executives on their Machiavellian tendencies.

“There is research in psychology that suggests first impressions are particularly accurate for personalities that are more in the ‘dark triad,’” Ridge said.

The dark triad refers to non-pathological manifestations of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy.

The psychologists used a seven-point scale to measure the CEOs, who scored an average of 3.98 for Machiavellian tendencies. In other words, the executives showed higher Machiavellian personality traits than the general population but were not on the extreme end of the scale. For the study, the researchers classified any CEO with a score above 3.5 as Machiavellian. 

SHOW ME THE MONEY

The researchers found that CEOs with Machiavellian personalities earned on average $1.64 million more per year than the mean pay for CEOs in the study, which was $12.9 million.

CEOs, unlike most other employees, negotiate their compensation directly with the board of directors.

“High Mach individuals typically want to win social interactions. They’re also more likely to engage in negotiations and the types of actions that would benefit them personally,” Ridge said.

For CEOs without Machiavellian personalities, their pay goes up when their company’s stock performs well. Machiavellian CEOs, however, manage to negotiate lucrative compensation even when their companies perform poorly.

The CEOs with Machiavellian tendencies also received larger severance packages, which are paid when executives are fired without cause.

While Machiavellian CEOs can be more expensive, they might also be worth the cost. The same negotiating skills and the desire to win that helps a Machiavellian CEO secure higher pay can also serve the company.

“When they’re negotiating with stakeholders, suppliers or buyers, they’re going to be better,” Ridge said.

The researchers also found that Machiavellian CEOs negotiate higher salaries for the other top executives at their companies.

A CEO typically earns more than other top executives at a company. Therefore, driving up their pay also benefits the CEO.

At the same time, higher pay for other top executives attracts and retains talent.

“Just like with any executive trait, with Machiavellianism there’s positives and negatives,” Ridge said. “We want to focus on the positives and figure out how we can minimize the negatives in the future.”

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Journal

Applied Psychology

DOI

10.1037/apl0001290 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Chief executive officer (CEO) Machiavellianism and executive pay

This puzzle game shows kids how they’re smarter than AI

University of Washington

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University of Washington researchers developed the game AI Puzzlers to show kids an area where AI systems still typically and blatantly fail: solving certain reasoning puzzles. In the game, users get a chance to solve puzzles by completing patterns of colored blocks. They can then ask various AI chatbots to solve and have the systems explain their solutions — which they nearly always fail. Here two children in the UW KidsTeam group test the game.

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Credit: University of Washington

ai_puzzlers_video [VIDEO] 

While the current generation of artificial intelligence chatbots still flub basic facts, the systems answer with such confidence that they’re often more persuasive than humans.

Adults, even those such as lawyers with deep domain knowledge, still regularly fall for this. But spotting errors in text is especially difficult for children, since they often don’t have the contextual knowledge to sniff out falsehoods.

University of Washington researchers developed the game AI Puzzlers to show kids an area where AI systems still typically and blatantly fail: solving certain reasoning puzzles. In the game, users get a chance to solve ‘ARC’ puzzles (short for Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus) by completing patterns of colored blocks. They can then ask various AI chatbots to solve the puzzles and have the systems explain their solutions — which they nearly always fail to do accurately. The team tested the game with two groups of kids. They found the kids learned to think critically about AI responses and discovered ways to nudge the systems toward better answers.

Researchers presented their findings June 25 at the Interaction Design and Children 2025 conference in Reykjavik, Iceland.

“Kids naturally loved ARC puzzles and they’re not specific to any language or culture,” said lead author Aayushi Dangol, a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering. “Because the puzzles rely solely on visual pattern recognition, even kids that can’t read yet can play and learn. They get a lot of satisfaction in being able to solve the puzzles, and then in seeing AI — which they might consider super smart — fail at the puzzles that they thought were easy.”

ARC puzzles were developed in 2019 to be difficult for computers but easy for humans because they demand abstraction: being able to look at a few examples of a pattern, then apply it to a new example. Current cutting-edge AI models have improved at ARC puzzles, but they’ve not caught up with humans.

Researchers built AI Puzzlers with 12 ARC puzzles that kids can solve. They can then compare their solutions to those from various AI chatbots; users can pick the model from a drop-down menu. An “Ask AI to Explain” button generates a text explanation of its solution attempt. Even if the system gets the puzzle right, its explanation of how is frequently inaccurate. An “Assist Mode” lets kids try to guide the AI system to a correct solution.

“Initially, kids were giving really broad hints,” Dangol said. “Like, ‘Oh, this pattern is like a doughnut.’ An AI model might not understand that a kid means that there’s a hole in the middle, so then the kid needs to iterate. Maybe they say, ‘A white space surrounded by blue squares.’”

The researchers tested the system at the UW College of Engineering’s Discovery Days last year with over 100 kids from grades 3 to 8. They also led two sessions with the KidsTeam UW, a project that works with a group of kids to collaboratively design technologies. In these sessions, 21 children ages 6-11 played AI Puzzlers and worked with the researchers.

“The kids in KidsTeam are used to giving advice on how to make a piece of technology better,” said co-senior author Jason Yip, a UW associate professor in the Information School and KidsTeam director. “We hadn't really thought about adding the Assist Mode feature, but during these co-design sessions, we were talking with the kids about how we might help AI solve the puzzles and the idea came from that.”

Through the testing, the team found that kids were able to spot errors both in the puzzle solutions and in the text explanations from the AI models. They also recognize differences in how human brains think and how AI systems generate information. “This is the internet’s mind,” one kid said. “It’s trying to solve it based only on the internet, but the human brain is creative.”

The researchers also found that as kids worked in Assist Mode, they learned to use AI as a tool that needs guidance rather than as an answer machine.

“Kids are smart and capable,” said co-senior author Julie Kientz, a UW professor and chair in human centered design and engineering. “We need to give them opportunities to make up their own minds about what AI is and isn't, because they're actually really capable of recognizing it. And they can be bigger skeptics than adults.”

Runhua Zhao and Robert Wolfe, both doctoral students in the Information School, and Trushaa Ramanan, a master’s student in human centered design and engineering, are also co-authors on this paper. This research was funded by The National Science Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences and the Jacobs Foundation’s CERES Network.

For more information, contact Dangol at adango@uw.edu, Yip at jcyip@uw.edu, and Kientz at jkientz@uw.edu.

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DOI

10.1145/3713043.3728836 

Article Title

"AI just keeps guessing": Using ARC Puzzles to Help Children Identify Reasoning Errors in Generative AI

Article Publication Date

 News Release 1-Jul-2025

 

Study suggests remembrances of dead played role in rise of architecture in Andean region

Discovery places architecture in region 1,500 years earlier than previously thought

University of California - Davis

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By Greg Watry, UC Davis

Archaeologists have long thought that monumental architecture — large, human-built structures that emphasize visibility — were products of societies with power structures, including social hierarchy, inequality and controlled labor forces. But this notion is being questioned as researchers uncover evidence that hunter-gatherer groups also built such structures.

In new research published June 24 in the journal Antiquity, University of California researchers report evidence of monumental structures built by hunter-gatherer groups at Kaillachuro, a collection of burial mounds located in the Titicaca Basin of the Peruvian Andes. The discovery places monumental architecture in the region 1,500 years earlier than previously thought, researchers said.

“Most researchers in the Andes argue that monumental architecture is a product of elites, intentionally constructed as a space of centralized power,” said the study’s corresponding author Luis Flores-Blanco, who conducted the research while a doctoral student in anthropology at UC Davis. “We propose that monumentality can emerge from hunter-gatherer groups without institutionalized inequality.”

The study — co-authored by Mark Aldenderfer, a professor emeritus of anthropology and heritage studies at UC Merced — suggests that ritual memory of the dead played a key role in the rise of monumental architecture in the region.

Burial activity began modestly, researchers said, with simple pits in the ground.

Over time, these practices evolved into the construction of stone masonry burial boxes that were eventually covered by mounds of debris resulting from ongoing rituals and remembrances of the community’s ancestors.

2,000 years of communal memorialization

The sites at Kaillachuro were built over a period of 2,000 years. Using radiocarbon dating, researchers suggest that these mounds are the earliest evidence of monumental architecture in the Titicaca Basin, with construction beginning about 5,300 calendar years before the present day. This is 1,500 years earlier than monumental architecture was thought to exist in the region.

“Kaillachuro is an extraordinary find because it shows that mounds were used in ritual contexts for over 2,000 years — though not necessarily continuously,” said Flores-Blanco, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University. “Our study shows that rituals surrounding the dead can, through repeated action, generate visible monumental formations in the landscape.”

Discovered in 1995 by Aldenderfer, Kaillachuro consists of nine low-lying mounds. Subsequent surveys and excavations of the mounds in the succeeding years uncovered human burials and stone tools, including projectile points, among other items.

The researchers theorize that Kaillachuro’s construction started when egalitarian hunter-gatherer groups began living in one place, allowing for population aggregation, low-level food production, expanded exchange networks and the development of bow-and-arrow technology.     

“In this way, Kaillachuro was not initially planned as a mound site, but rather developed gradually through ongoing acts of burial ritual and remembrance tied to the community’s ancestors,” Flores-Blanco said.

An emphasis on remembrance of the dead

The study suggests an alternative pathway to mounded architecture that emphasizes community and ritual memory of the dead over societal power structures. In this instance, memory of the dead didn’t merely remain symbolic, but manifested as a materially visible architectural form.

“In many societies, the burial of ancestors compels us to return, reminisce and mark a space as special,” Flores-Blanco said. “At Kaillachuro, this happened in a similar way — though here, these repetitive practices formed mounds that not only shaped the landscape, but likely also influenced the practices of the living. This form of construction, rooted in communal memory, is what makes it monumental.”

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the H. John Heinz III Charitable Trust, the Rust Family Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos - Carlos Brignardello Grant, and the National Geographic Society. 

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Journal

Antiquity

DOI

10.15184/aqy.2025.40 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Publication Date

24-Jun-2025

 

Family ties and firm performance: How cousin marriage traditions shape informal businesses in Africa

Strategic Management Society

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A new study published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal examines how long-standing cultural practices, specifically cousin marriage traditions, continue to influence business outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa's informal economy.

Researchers Saul Estrin (London School of Economics), Tomasz Mickiewicz (Aston University), and Peng Zhang (University of Sheffield) analyzed survey data from over 3,000 informal entrepreneurs across eight African countries. They explored how pre-colonial family structures—especially the practice of marrying within the extended family—affect key indicators of business performance, such as employment and revenue.

Cousin marriage, defined in the study as the practice of marrying within a kinship group, has deep historical roots in many African ethnic communities. The tradition reinforces in-group identity and tightly knit social networks, which in turn influence how small businesses make decisions about hiring and growth.

The researchers found that firms operating in areas with a historical tradition of cousin marriage were more likely to use additional financial resources to hire relatives or in-group members, leading to greater employment increases but smaller gains in revenue. In contrast, firms in communities without such traditions tended to prioritize revenue growth and acted more individualistically in their business decisions.

“These findings suggest that family systems and social expectations play a significant role in shaping how informal entrepreneurs allocate resources,” said Zhang. “Even when cousin marriage is no longer widely practiced, its underlying norms—like the emphasis on supporting the in-group—can persist and continue to influence behavior.”

The study also explores how colonization altered these long-standing family norms. The authors found that British colonial rule, with its emphasis on individualistic legal and administrative structures, was associated with a weakening of the cousin marriage tradition in many areas. These changes, however, varied by region and were influenced by competing cultural forces, including Islamic and Christian missionary activity.

The persistence of cultural norms over generations—even after formal practices change—highlights the importance of understanding historical context in business environments. Informal firms, which make up a large share of the African economy, often operate without formal regulation and rely heavily on community and family structures for support.

The authors emphasize that the implications extend beyond the informal sector. Multinational companies and policy makers working in sub-Saharan Africa should recognize that social institutions like cousin marriage traditions may influence the behavior and goals of local business partners and subcontractors.

To read the full context of the study and its methods, access the full paper available in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.

About the Strategic Management Society

The Strategic Management Society (SMS) is the leading global member organization fostering and supporting rigorous and practice-engaged strategic management research. SMS enjoys the support of 3,000 members, representing more than 1,100 institutions and companies in more than 70 countries. SMS publishes three leading academic journals in partnership with Wiley: Strategic Management Journal, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and Global Strategy Journal. These journals publish top-quality work applicable to researchers and practitioners with complementary access for all SMS Members. The SMS Explorer offers the latest insights and takeaways from the SMS Journals for business practitioners, consultants, and academics.

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Journal

Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal

DOI

10.1002/sej.1549 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

The cousin marriage tradition, colonial shocks, and the performance of informal firms in sub-Saharan Africa

Article Publication Date

1-Jun-2025

 

Novel flu vaccine adjuvant improves protection against influenza viruses, study finds

Georgia State University

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ATLANTA — Influenza hemagglutinin subunit vaccines are more effective and offer better cross protection against various influenza virus challenges when combined with a mucosal adjuvant that enhances the body’s immune response, according to a study by researchers in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.

The study published in the journal ACS Nano shows that immune cell-derived extracellular vesicles, specifically those from mature bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (which are crucial for immune responses), rather than those from immature dendritic cells, are potent mucosal adjuvants for influenza hemagglutinin vaccines.

The influenza hemagglutinin subunit vaccine is a type of influenza vaccine that primarily contains the surface protein hemagglutinin of the influenza virus. Mucosal adjuvants are substances that can enhance the body’s immune response to foreign materials in the mucosa, such as the surface of the respiratory tract, study authors explained.

Existing seasonal influenza vaccines have limited effectiveness against evolved virus strains, so next-generation, cross-protective influenza vaccines are urgently needed. Recombinant protein subunit vaccines have gained attention in vaccine development due to their safety, ease of large-scale manufacturing and affordability. Protein subunit vaccines can be designed to target specific pathogen components, leading to more focused immune responses.

Studies have found that mucosal immunization is a promising strategy against respiratory infectious diseases because it helps prevent the infection and transmission of respiratory pathogens and exhibits potential cross protection. However, the effectiveness of protein vaccines administered mucosally is limited, so there’s a need for safe and effective mucosal adjuvants. This study investigated the potential of extracellular vesicles derived from mature dendritic cells as mucosal adjuvants for influenza hemagglutinin vaccines.

Prior to this study, the mucosal adjuvant potential of extracellular vesicles derived from mature dendritic cells and the underlying mechanisms of action have been unknown.

“Immune cell-derived extracellular vesicles, which play crucial roles in intercellular communication and modulating biological responses, are potent mucosal adjuvants for influenza hemagglutinin vaccines,” said Bao-Zhong Wang, senior author of the study and a Distinguished University Professor in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State.

“These vesicles exhibit intriguing immunostimulatory activity both in vitro and in vivo,” Wang said. “Specifically, they effectively activated antigen-presenting cells, macrophages and B cells in vitro, and promoted enhanced recruitment of airway immune cells, early lymphocyte activation and robust germinal center formation in mice.”

The study found that intranasal immunization of mice with the influenza hemagglutinin vaccine plus the extracellular vesicle adjuvant from mature bone marrow-derived dendritic cells elicited significant, cross-reactive, and multifaceted humoral and cellular immune responses at both systemic and mucosal sites, conferring complete protection against homologous and heterologous influenza virus challenges.

The researchers pointed out that extracellular vesicles derived from mature dendritic cells have gained significant attention in immunotherapy and vaccine development because they have a variety of immunologically active molecules crucial for effective presentation of antigens (foreign substances that induces an immune response in the body), as well as cell adhesion and fusion.

“These findings underscore the potential of extracellular vesicles from mature bone marrow-derived dendritic cells as a promising adjuvant or immunomodulatory target for the development of mucosal vaccines,” said Chunhong Dong, first author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State. “Given their biocompatibility and solid adjuvanticity, mature bone marrow-derived dendritic cells represent a promising adjuvant candidate for mucosal vaccine development.”

Additional authors of the study include Lai Wei, Wandi Zhu, Joo Kyung Kim, Ye Wang, Priscilla Omotara and Arini Arsana of the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State.

The study is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

To read the study, visit https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.5c08831.

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Journal

ACS Nano

DOI

10.1021/acsnano.5c08831 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Mature Dendritic Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles are Potent Mucosal Adjuvants for Influenza Hemagglutinin Vaccines

Article Publication Date

1-Jul-2025

 

Experts say seafood deregulation could impact sustainability and supply

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of California - Santa Barbara

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(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — A sweeping new executive order to deregulate the U.S. seafood sector risks unraveling decades of scientific progress and environmental protections, according to aquaculture and fishery scientists writing in a new paper published in the journal Marine Policy. Rather than strengthening the industry, they argue, the policy threatens the very systems that support sustainable seafood.  

“(It’s) a significant escalation in undoing federal regulatory frameworks, weakening scientific authority and deemphasizing aquaculture development,” state professors Halley Froehlich of UC Santa Barbara and Jessica Gephart at the University of Washington. “Instead of reform, it’s dismantling regulations in a very short amount of time,” added Froehlich, the paper’s lead author.  

Enacted in April 2025, “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness,” states that “in addition to overregulation, unfair trade practices have put our seafood markets at a competitive disadvantage.” The executive order calls for actions to ensure the integrity of the seafood supply chain, eliminate unsafe imports and reduce regulatory burdens, among other things.

However, according to the researchers, the rush to fulfill the mandate, coupled with less funding and personnel to do so, presents more chaos than benefit, which could ultimately make the U.S. seafood sector less competitive. This can be seen in the weakening of the role of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency tasked with managing roughly 500 U.S. commercial fishery stocks. 

Deep cuts to the agency’s budget and workforce, as well as restrictions on communications are bound to make it more difficult to coordinate and plan the fishing of species, especially those that move and migrate across international borders.

“It’s quite problematic because NOAA is so central to how we manage our fisheries,” Froehlich said. “Data collection, monitoring, oversight, you name it, NOAA is part of that, and a really important part.”

While the move to deregulate is an attempt to increase the production and profitability of U.S. seafood, the end result is unlikely to be worth the effort, expense and weakening of environmental regulations, the authors argue, given that U.S. and global wild fisheries already produce near maximum levels. According to Froehlich and Gephart, aquaculture — farmed fish, shellfish and other marine and aquatic organisms — is the growth sector for both the economy and food security.

“We are not going to get more out of the ocean,” Froehlich said. “We’re already near ‘peak fish,’ meaning maintenance and recovery of our stocks.” In the researchers’ comparison between a 2020 executive order and this new one, aquaculture receives very little attention.  They argue that in a climate of funding cuts to federal agencies tasked with overseeing aquaculture, this oversight represents a mismatch between the intention of the executive order and the understanding, expertise and funding required to successfully increase the nation’s competitiveness in the seafood sector.

In addition, the potential decommissioning of numerous NOAA databases and online resources and the defunding of research, particularly in the realm of climate change, may be a detriment to efforts to expand seafood production, the researchers warn. Without the ability to monitor species and keep track of climate trends, the seafood sector also loses the ability to predict and respond quickly to emerging problems. “Without the data, expertise and capacity to study and understand these systems we run the risk of fishery collapses becoming more common and long-lasting,” they assert.

The researchers also point out inconsistencies related to seafood sourcing in the recent executive order, among them oversimplifications that do not account for market realities in the U.S. seafood sector. For one thing, the seafood that the U.S. tends to farm in volume are not the types of seafood that are of highest demand domestically, which could undermine efforts to substitute imports with domestic production. On top of that, potential tariffs levied on foreign seafood and U.S.-landed but foreign processed seafood could ultimately make seafood even more expensive for Americans, particularly high-demand species such as shrimp, of which only 10% of U.S. supply is locally produced.

“In disrupting the market dynamics we do have, especially with trade wars with our trading partners, it’s likely that we’re going to have the opposite effect of creating opportunity long-term,” said Froehlich. The paper was recently entered as evidence for a recent hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee’s Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee, which is tasked with making Congressional decisions concerning fisheries management. “When it comes to any shifts in production, these high levels of uncertainty are not a beneficial thing to happen for the sector,” she said.

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Journal

Marine Policy

Article Title

Uncertain United States seafood sustainability in a manufactured crisis