Being Agreeable Costs You Money

According to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the more agreeable you are, the less money you’re likely to make because you don’t intervene to get raises.

Photo by Gordon Joly.

In a series of different tests, it was revealed that men who are just one step more disagreeable than average earn around 18.31 per cent more. For woman, it’s less pronounced, at just 5.47 per cent. The theory is that those who are agreeable aren’t stubborn enough to push for wage increases.

In a column in Wired, Jonah Lehrer breaks it down:

Although agreeable people are less likely to get fired, and are just as likely to supervise others, they appear far less effective at negotiating pay increases, thus suggesting that the main financial benefit of disagreeableness is a willingness to stubbornly fight for what’s wanted, even if it makes others uncomfortable.

In short, yes, nice guys do finish last, but thankfully we have some previously mentioned ideas about asking for raise. There’s a bigger breakdown on Wired that goes into gender expectations and the reasons behind the results on the link below.

Do Nice Guys Finish Last? [Wired]