On the Costs of Being Nice
Agreeable people tend to be kinder and more accommodating in social situations, which you might think could add to their success in life. However, one downside of agreeableness is potentially lower earnings. Recent research has shown the answer to this and other puzzles; some of them may surprise you.
First, and perhaps most obvious, agreeable individuals are less adept at a type of negotiation called distributive bargaining. As we discuss in Chapter 14, distributive bargaining is less about creating win-win solutions and more about claiming as large of a share of the pie as possible. Because salary negotiations are generally distributive, agreeable individuals often negotiate lower salaries for themselves than they might otherwise get. Perhaps because of this impaired ability to negotiate distributively, agreeable individuals have lower credit scores.
Second, agreeable individuals may choose to work in industries or occupations that earn lower salaries, such as the "caring" industries of education or healthcare. Agreeable individuals are also attracted to jobs both in the public sector and in non-profit organizations.
Third, the earnings of agreeable individuals also may be reduced by their lower drive to emerge as leaders, and by their tendency to engage in lower degrees of proactive task behaviors, such as coming up with ways to increase organizational effectiveness.
While being agreeable certainly doesn't appear to help one's pay, it does provide other benefits. Agreeable individuals are better liked at work, are more likely to help others at work, and generally are happier at work and in life.
Nice guys--and gals--may finish last in terms of earnings, but wages themselves do not define a happy life, and on that front, agreeable individuals have the advantage.
This is a two-part forum post:
- Post a link to a news article, blog, or other online source about agreeableness and provide a brief definition of what agreeableness means.