niceness

[da]

A philosophical question for the weekend (yeah, I hear you shuddering. But I like thinking on the weekends!)

The other day I listened to a This American Life episode on The Allure of the Mean Friend. It included the following question:

"Does Niceness Pay? In which we conduct a little scientific experiment – on tape – with hidden microphones - about whether niceness pays. We wire two waitresses with hidden microphones. They're superfriendly to half their tables; and aloof to the other half. They examine their tips to see which generates more profits."

...The experiment has inconclusive results. On one day, aloofness paid; on the other, both aloofness and niceness come out the same. Their conclusion wasn't terribly useful at proving or disproving the hypothesis.

So, I'd like to know: is there truth to aloofness or meanness paying? I know that to a point, assertiveness pays. And I've occasionally watched friends get taken advantage of by being too nice. (I know I've gotten stomped on for being too nice).

I want to differentiate between "meanness" and "assertiveness". I think there isn't a single continuum:

(<---- mean ---- assertive --- passive ---- nice ---- >).

Thinking about it now, I prefer two sets, mean/nice, assertive/passive. I think you can be extremely nice, and still be assertive; though I'm not totally sure what that looks like all the time. But I do try to vary my own behaviour on the assertiveness/passiveness continuum while still staying at the nice end of the mean/nice continuum. But is it possible to be "very nice" while still being assertive?

The best overall strategy I've seen (for myself, and for others) involves being as nice and helpful as possible, except when prevented by self-interest... But there are arguments against flat-out niceness:

Morally, people sometimes need to be told things they don't want to hear. melted_snowball and I have talked fairly often about Quakers and an idea proposed by a mutual friend who says Quakers often have "a false testimony of niceness." That can take the form of not pushing an issue in order to preserve "peace". Also, being too nice can be a form of lying, trying to save somebody from a hard truth. It's a form of paternalism, and also laziness, and probably also fear.

It seems to me that being as-nice-as-possible implies valuing everyone else's time and opinions over your own. With no chance of being assertive at the same time.

The episode of TAL mentions how people are attracted to mean people; how, despite ourselves, we want to be manipulated, at least a little bit. I haven't thought it through all the way, but it seems that mean is less boring than nice; and we'd generally rather have interesting, than 100% nice.

So: is meanness a good interpersonal strategy?

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I think that you'd have to define the measurement of success better. Is success determined by making the most friends? By having closer friendships with those you have? By having friendships with the people with whom you would most like to have friendships? By achieving the maximum average happiness of the community? By being most comfortable with yourself?

I think to a degree it might be one of those things that tends toward self-fulfillment. People who use one or the other strategy will probably also value other people who subscribe to a similar strategy and thus will value connections with those people more highly.