Nice Guys Never Win (Neither Do Mean Girls) | Hacker News Reader

Nice Guys Never Win (Neither Do Mean Girls)

freakonomics.com

32 pointsmikeleeorg13 comments

Rather than a raving psychopath, a disagreeable person is “more likely than people high in trait agreeableness to behave disagreeably in certain situations by, for instance, aggressively advocating for their position during conflicts (van de Vliert & Euwema, 2004).”

In other words, confidence and decisiveness is viewed as an attractive trait in males.

Nothing new here really.

True, but if you generalize to managers in corporations you get some interesting insight, which is to my surprise doesn't seem to be known or practiced by some managers.

Some managers in large corporations where many different project ideas and proposals compete, are in the mindset of "the good ideas will eventually win over the other ones". Experience (mine at least) have proven time and time again otherwise, the truth is more like the squeaky wheel gets gets the grease: i.e. people who aggressively push their ideas and use political maneuvering almost always (i) have their project funded and (ii) get promoted.

A valid point that was brought up in the discussion on the blog:

"I’m surprised no one has asked how the studies accounted for survivorship bias. One could easily imagine that while a certain number of, ahem, disagreeable men, stand out and increase their earning, it seems likely that this cohort is also terminated in greater numbers."

Alternative title: successful men are seen as less agreeable.

Much better. This has more to do with income than "seduction" theory or whatever.

Bad research, lousy generalizations, and crappy conclusions.

> The hypotheses were supported across four studies.

I wonder which study Warren Buffet, that disagreeable guy, fell into?

Regardless of opinion on the quality of the research, how does one person prove anything. What's that quote, "the plural of anecdote isn't data"?

> how does one person prove anything.

When the article includes the statement "Nice guys do not necessarily finish last, but they do finish a distant second in terms of earnings", it is a sign of either:

1. Imprecise writing, or 2. Wrong conclusions.

If their conclusions are wrong, then the article is a waste of bits. If their writing is imprecise, then just how imprecise are the generalizing statements that cannot be disproved with an obvious counterexample?

In either case, the article looks like all noise and no signal to me.

If their conclusion is correct (and I have no idea if it is or isn't), the quite obviously that statement is a generalisation, and a perfectly fine use of one too. It quite clearly means "as a general trend", not "in absolutely every case". Did you honestly read that and think "aha, I can think of somebody who doesn't fit that statement, they're clearly wrong"?

No, but the plural of datum is. Datum: Buffett has done rather well for himself.

Doesn't show much by itself, but then neither does trotting out an old saw.

The fact that it's a much over-used phrase doesn't make it any less correct. The point stands that naming somebody who doesn't fit into research does not disprove it. My dad and I are both smokers, neither of us has lung cancer - I'm still pretty sure there's a link between those two despite by two pieces of datum.

Having read Snowball (the biography of Warren Buffet), I would not be so sure he isn't disagreeable. Clearly, this is a guy who is so focused on his goals that everything else and everyone else in his life took a back seat. He does not come across as a malicious person but clearly not a "nice" person.

The terminology used in the article ("disagreeable", "mean", etc) is imho too emotionally loaded for proper understanding of the phenomenon. Most people reading this article see the takeaway as "assholes finish first" and are (rightly so) conflicted about trading their souls for a couple gold coins. The real lesson, I think, is to realize that to get anything significant done, you will eventually have to piss off some people you care about at some point. They could be your employees, partners, customers or even family. But this is alright, we piss each off all the time. It's ok, it's a part of life. Just don't be a jerk about it.

Cited study .doc file in Google Docs viewer:

http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freakonomi...

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