Een aantal onderzoeken lijken te bewijzen wat we zo vaak in films te zien krijgen: de brave jongens halen nooit de eerste plaats en komen zelfs meestal als laatste. Nee, het zijn de alfamannetjes die het meestal halen. De onderzoeken die binnenkort verschijnen in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, geven aan dat de ‘nice guys’ niet noodzakelijk laatst eindigen, maar dat ze wel zelden eerst eindigen…

Onderzoekers Beth A. Livingston van Cornell, Timothy A. Judge van Notre Dame en Charlice Hurst van de Universiteit van Western Ontario, tonen hoe “agreeableness” een negatief effect heeft op wat je verdient. Het effect van het verschil is trouwens een pak groter tussen mannen dan tussen vrouwen. Hier vind je de  volledige versie van de studie. Dit is het abstract van de studie:

“Sex and agreeableness were hypothesized to affect income, such that women and agreeable individuals were hypothesized to earn less than men and less agreeable individuals. Because agreeable men disconfirm (and disagreeable men confirm) to conventional gender roles, agreeableness was expected to be more negatively related to income for men (i.e., the pay gap between agreeable men and agreeable women would be smaller than the gap between disagreeable men and disagreeable women). The hypotheses were supported across four studies. Study 1 confirmed the effects of sex and agreeableness on income and that the agreeableness – income relationship was significantly more negative for men than for women, controlling for each of the other Big Five traits. Study 2 showed that the differential effects of agreeableness on income for men versus women were replicated when job responsibility and occupational status were taken into account. A third study, using a policy-capturing design, yielded evidence for the argument that the joint effects of agreeableness and gender are due to backlash against agreeable men.”

Verder in het artikel wordt het duidelijk gesteld:

‘Nice guys do not necessarily finish last, but they do finish a distant second in terms of earnings. From a humanistic perspective, it seems remarkably unfair that men who are amiable would be so heavily penalized for not conforming to gender norms. Yet, seen from the perspective of gender equity, even the nice guys seem to be making out quite well relative to either agreeable or disagreeable women.’

Wat is nu een “disagreeable” persoon? Dit is niet noodzakelijk een  psychopaat, maar een dergelijke persoon 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).”

Terwijl bij vrouwen de kloof tussen braaf en stout kleiner is, blijven ze een pak minder verdienen dan zelfs de brave hendriken:

“Nice girls might not get rich, but “mean” girls do not do much better. Even controlling for human capital, marital status, and occupation, highly disagreeable women do not earn as much as highly agreeable men.”

(bron Freakonimics)