Being a selfish jerk doesn't get you ahead: Study

Date:
August 31, 2020
Source:
University of California - Berkeley Haas School of Business
Summary:
Two studies provide empirical evidence to settle the question of
whether being aggressively Machiavellian helps people get ahead. The
studies concluded that being a jerk provides no advantage in
career advancement.

Any power boost disagreeable people get from being intimidating
is offset by their poor interpersonal relationships, the studies
concluded.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The evidence is in: Nice guys and gals don't finish last, and being a
selfish jerk doesn't get you ahead.


========================================================================== That's the clear conclusion from research that tracked disagreeable
people from college or graduate school to where they landed in their
careers about 14 years later.

"I was surprised by the consistency of the findings. No matter the
individual or the context, disagreeableness did not give people an
advantage in the competition for power -- even in more cutthroat,
'dog-eat-dog' organizational cultures," said Berkeley Haas Prof. Cameron Anderson, who co-authored the study with Berkeley Psychology Prof. Oliver
P. John, doctoral student Daron L.

Sharps, and Assoc. Prof. Christopher J. Soto of Colby College.

The paper was published August 31 in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.

The researchers conducted two studies of people who had completed
personality assessments as undergraduates or MBA students at three universities. They surveyed the same people more than a decade later,
asking about their power and rank in their workplaces, as well as the
culture of their organizations. They also asked their co-workers to rate
the study participants' rank and workplace behavior. Across the board,
they found those with selfish, deceitful, and aggressive personality
traits were not more likely to have attained power than those who were generous, trustworthy, and generally nice.

That's not to say that jerks don't reach positions of power. It's just
that they didn't get ahead faster than others, and being a jerk simply
didn't help, Anderson said. That's because any power boost they get from
being intimidating is offset by their poor interpersonal relationships,
the researchers found. In contrast, the researchers found that extroverts
were the most likely to have advanced in their organizations, based on
their sociability, energy, and assertiveness -- backing up prior research.



==========================================================================
"The bad news here is that organizations do place disagreeable individuals
in charge just as often as agreeable people," Anderson said. "In other
words, they allow jerks to gain power at the same rate as anyone else,
even though jerks in power can do serious damage to the organization."
The age-old question of whether being aggressively Machiavellian helps
people get ahead has long interested Anderson, who studies social
status. It's a critical question for managers, because ample research
has shown that jerks in positions of power are abusive, prioritize their
own self-interest, create corrupt cultures, and ultimately cause their organizations to fail. They also serve as toxic role models for society
at large.

For example, people who read former-Apple CEO Steve Jobs' biography might think, "Maybe if I become an even bigger asshole I'll be successful like Steve," the authors note in their paper. "My advice to managers would
be to pay attention to agreeableness as an important qualification for positions of power and leadership," Anderson said. "Prior research is
clear: agreeable people in power produce better outcomes." While there's clearly no shortage of jerks in power, there's been little empirical
research to settle the question of whether being disagreeable actually
helped them get there, or is simply incidental to their success.

Anderson and his co-authors set out to create a research design that
would clear up the debate.

What defines a jerk? The participants had all completed the Big
Five Inventory (BFI), an assessment based on general consensus
among psychologists of the five fundamental personality dimensions:
openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism,
and agreeableness. It was developed by Anderson's co-author John,
who directs the Berkeley Personality Lab. In addition, some of the
participants also completed a second personality assessment, the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R).



========================================================================== "Disagreeableness is a relatively stable aspect of personality that
involves the tendency to behave in quarrelsome, cold, callous, and selfish ways," the researchers explained. ." ..Disagreeable people tend to be
hostile and abusive to others, deceive and manipulate others for their
own gain, and ignore others' concerns or welfare." In the first study,
which involved 457 participants, the researchers found no relationship
between power and disagreeableness, no matter whether the person had
scored high or low on those traits. That was true regardless of gender,
race or ethnicity, industry, or the cultural norms in the organization.

The second study went deeper, looking at the four main ways people
attain power: through dominant-aggressive behavior, or using fear and intimidation; political behavior, or building alliances with influential people; communal behavior, or helping others; and competent behavior,
or being good at one's job. They also asked the subjects' co-workers to
rate their place in the hierarchy, as well as their workplace behavior (interestingly, the co-workers' ratings largely matched the subjects' self-assessments).

This allowed the researchers to better understand why disagreeable people
do not get ahead faster than others. Even though jerks tend to engage
in dominant behavior, their lack of communal behavior cancels out any
advantage their aggressiveness gives them, they concluded.

Anderson noted that the findings don't directly speak to whether disagreeableness helps or hurts people attain power in the realm of
electoral politics, where the power dynamics are different than in organizations. But there are some likely parallels. "Having a strong
set of alliances is generally important to power in all areas of life,"
he said. "Disagreeable politicians might have more difficulty maintaining necessary alliances because of their toxic behavior."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_California_-_Berkeley_Haas_School_of Business. Original
written by Laura Counts. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Cameron Anderson el al. People with disagreeable personalities
(selfish,
combative, and manipulative) do not have an advantage in pursuing
power at work. PNAS, 2020 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2005088117 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200831154408.htm

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