Question - on the costs of being nice discussion

Reference no: EM133240662

Question - On the Costs of Being Nice Discussion

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.

Sources - T. A. Judge, B. A. Livingston, and C. Hurst, "Do Nice Guys-and Gals-Really Finish Last? The Joint Effects of Sex and Agreeableness on Income," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102 (2012), pp. 390-407; J. B. Bernerth, S. G. Taylor, H. J. Walker, and D. S. Whitman, "An Empirical Investigation of Dispositional Antecedents and Performance-Related Outcomes of Credit Scores," Journal of Applied Psychology 97 (2012), pp. 469-478; J. Carpenter, D. Doverspike, and R. F. Miguel, "Public Service Motivation as a Predictor of Attraction to the Public Sector," Journal of Vocational Behavior 80 (2012), pp. 509-523; and A. Neal, G. Yeo, A. Koy, and T. Xiao, "Predicting the Form and Direction of Work Role Performance from the Big 5 Model of Personality Traits," Journal of Organizational Behavior 33 (2012), pp. 175-192.

Questions -

Do you think employers must choose between agreeable employees and top performers? Why or why not?

The effects of personality often depend on the situation. Can you think of some job situations in which agreeableness is an important virtue, and some in which it is harmful to job performance?

In some research conducted, the negative effects of agreeableness on earnings are stronger for men than for women (that is, being agreeable hurt men's earnings more than women's). Why do you think this might be the case?

Reference no: EM133240662

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