Is Kindness Killing You? Personality & Success
@takashipom In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, 2014
There’s a fundamental problem with good behavior – it correlates moderately to lower rates of income and success. More specifically, individuals whose personality is high in the trait aspect of Agreeability suffer lower rates of markers associated with success.
And yes, women are, as a group on average, higher in this trait aspect than men.
Evolutionary Psychology
The standing hypothesis is that politeness developed in biologically weaker sexes and compassion developed in individuals tasked with raising children. I say “developed” because those genetics and genetic tendencies are passed on, with “nature” accounting for 50% of behavior while “nurture" covers the other 50%. You’ve always been wondering that. Now you know. You’re welcome.
Likewise, physical power is sometimes attributed to brutishness and disagreeability, which allowed men to be victorious over foes for centuries. Thank testosterone./ This is where we get our common perceptions of gendered personality norms – biology. It is also why women are perceived as compassionate when looking someone in the eye but a man looking may be perceived as a threat.
Measurements & Group Norms
Caution: norms overlap, such that genders populate the extremes but cross in the middle of the distribution. EX: Highly disagreeable women are far more assertive than highly compassionate men. Women as a group tend to want to be nurses more often than men but there is a smaller group of men who make excellent nurses and outperform some of the women just as some women make excellent CEOs despite the men tending to be more interested in executive positions. Psychopathy is more common in men and sociopathy more common in women, but there are certainly sociopathic men and psychotic women.
Norms then are the peak of a distribution, the probability of where an unknown individual will place on a distribution, the typical expectation of the individual, and the typical identifier of extremes or outliers.
Personality Variants
Let’s discuss the variants of Agreeability and common personality co-conspirators. Agreeability can be broken into two aspects – politeness and compassion. Extraversion can be separated into enthusiasm and assertiveness.
High-politeness, Low-extraversion
Individuals high in politeness and low in extraversion are more likely to deceive others and themselves. This has often been discussed regarding beta males, who do not straightforwardly approach individuals they are interested in but express their interest indirectly, join a cause, alter their position, or take up feminism and reject male positions. As many women know, these nice guys can often turn mean or collapse when rejected, suddenly becoming assertive without warning or being spineless.
The problem is that polite individuals often don’t see their own desires, drives, and motivations. They will therefore leave others in the dark, unless the other drives the conversation. They perpetually watch reactions and adjust to keep everyone else happy – they may even see another individual's dissatisfaction as a threat.
High-politeness & compassion, Low-extraversion
If they recognize their desires and are high in compassion, they often still can’t act, because they belong to others’ needs. This is great for infants, but not relationships or companies. When they do act, it can be swift and total, and catch others by surprise. People dislike being gaslighted even if it was a lack of psychologically safe communication rather than deception, so relationships are harmed and trust is broken. Agreeable people make take this feedback as proof of need to continue rejecting personal desire to avoid loss, villainizing others.
High-politeness, Low-compassion
Politeness is great for keeping others happy, which makes it an excellent deceptive tool. If an individual is also low in compassion and high is extraversion, we call this sociopathy. These individuals spend a great deal of time cultivating the interests of others for their own personal ends without conscience, and intentionally gaslight or deceive for their own ends without guilt or regret. They are polite but act ruthlessly when it suits them. Assuming they inhibit their ruthless behavior, they may become successful – very successful (hence the reason for the so called Sociopath's Bible, Power by Robert Greene which examines the values of ruthless business people).
Low-politeness, High-compassion
Individuals high in compassion but low in politeness do better, in my value estimation, but only moderately so. They often come to a conclusion on another’s behalf or before sorting all the information and ensuring they have the information correct. They may act altruistically on behalf of other individuals without clearly ascertaining where other people stand or giving them the chance to express their position. This is sometimes correlated to a high “Judging” and “Feeling” function in Myers-Briggs typology for FJ personalities.
Application and Phenomenology
Two people want a raise. The individual who is willing to ask for it and immodestly, impolitely believe and assert they deserve it is more likely to receive it – the disagreeable person. The unassertive, polite person is less likely to be heard, acknowledged, understood, or followed.
A disagreeable person asks for a raise
The disagreeable individual walks into their boss' office and confidently says what they want and why they deserve it. Their boss says no. Undismayed, they threaten to quit, assert value, or maybe even hand their boss an offer from a competing company. The boss resigns and offers 50% of the ask (managers are or become disagreeable with promotions). They they stand their ground. Their boss offers 60%. They offer 86% and not a dime less. The boss agrees and even feels optimistic that this individual will put that same kind of effort in for the business.
An agreeable person asks for a raise
The agreeable individual approaches their boss in timidly asks for a meeting. The boss gives them a date a week away. That next week, the boss moves their meeting to the following week. This happens several times. When they are finally in the meeting six weeks later, they dance around the subject with polite conversation, wasting time. The boss is annoyed. He says that he is very busy and asks what they wanted. If they ask, they state that they were hoping to talk about their salary. The boss says they can do that in six months, at the review. The individual leaves, glad to let the boss get back to work and happy about their future. The boss is put off by their spineless time wasting.
Outcomes
Six months later, the impolite individual displays their accomplishments to the boss. When the boss points out flaws, they point out benefits and future opportunities in the works. They receive a promotion and another raise. The polite individual is also a good worker, but they allow the manager to lead the conversation about all of the ways they can improve. Finally, at the end of the interview, they remind the manager of the conversation they had about compensation. The manager says they would like to see the requested changes first, and says they will reconvene in six months. Six months later, now a year later, it “just isn’t a good time.” By then, the disagreeable individual has jumped to another company and now holds the same as the manager.
The agreeable employee? They are still waiting on that raise.
Relationship Examples
1. Ask and you shall receive
We’re familiar with the assertive man or woman getting the good-looking partner they aim for when they put their intentions “out there.” Remember that. This is a norm.
2. Assertive vs Agreeable
We’re also familiar with the assertive man who fails to see the needs of an agreeable wife who fails to share and is conflict-adverse until she is done and leaves. This is perhaps the most commonly accepted norm from the last century, and the basic blueprint for male-on-female violence. Remember it as you train your assertiveness. Asserting a desire to know the other is just as important as asserting personal desires.
Here are some more difficult scenarios which are more difficult to recognize but are also normative.
3. Dual Compassion
Two agreeable, straightforward, compassionate individuals are in a relationship. They talk about hopes, dreams, and ideals, and build a deep trust. Eventually, one decides their paths are imperfectly aligned and says, through tears, it’s time to end the relationship. The other, hopelessly in love, disagrees, but gently, and fails to make a case for or a space to discuss the relationship and ends up supporting the other's desire to leave.
They may take months to fully separate, or get clarity on why the relationship ended. They may ghost one another and collapse internally. The willingness to be flexible for the other person’s desires is never spoken. They let go in deference, and lose the love of their life, because they were too kind. The other loses their love also, because they judged too quickly and too altruistically for their other, and loses a chance work out a way to continue the relationship. They separate because they lack the ability to have conflict and resolution.
4. Counter Assumed Gender-Norm Relationship
Let’s take a counter normative position, but one which is far more common than most realize because men are the most compassionate male creatures on earth and our society currently ignores the negative aspects of women.
A high-politeness, assertive, low-compassion woman is in a relationship with a high-compassion, low-politeness, low assertiveness man. Usually such a man will have status of some sort or artistic or technical competence. The man takes issue with the woman’s lack of empathy and wants to talk things out, but she refuses to engage and blames. High-minded, he pushes for resolution and connection until she lashes out, maybe physically. Rather than draw a line and walk away, he retreats and becomes unable to act or learns to act without consulting her. Un-consulted and otherwise with a “spineless” man who no longer seems high-status, she becomes malicious, and secretly rejects him. This is a common blueprint for female-on-male domestic violence.
She starts an emotional or physical affair with someone powerful. Her partner may pine away in isolation or have an affair also. He may find a woman who admires him (and repeat history) or is kind (this affair may last). The partners finally have a fight to end all fights which ends the relationship and the woman throws it into the public arena. The compassionate man appears ruthless and cruel for being straightforward, while the malicious woman acts polite, stonewalls, and appears blameless, seeking community judgement of the man. The compassionate, honest man looks terrible, while the deceptive, unempathetic, uncompassionate woman appears to be a saint.
Summary
Overly polite people inadvertently deceive those around them and, if they are low in compassion, destroy communities. Absolutely compliant, modest, polite individuals serve others and cannot express desires.
Compassionate people bend to the will of others, who may have a high relational opinion of them, but not professionally. They may be exploited. Absolutely tender-minded, altruistic, trusting individuals cannot promote justice, accountability, or improvement.
On the other hand, individuals high in disagreeability risk being perceived as assholes unless they can also be compassionate, or at least connected and aware.
These examples show the necessity of walking fine lines. Meekness is a good example of historical compromise. This defines those with power and skill who choose not to use it until other routes are exhausted. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is another good example. The prerequisite is loving one’s self. Loving the people around us more than we love ourselves will produce profound self rejection and make others hate us or exploit us because we do not respect ourselves enough to have limits.
Action
Decisive self-assertion is needed to achieve desires and necessary directions and endings, while a compassionate and respectful disposition is necessary to achieve social connection. Without a personality capable of choice self-sacrifice is slavery. Likewise, narcissism is not a virtue but neither is unavoidable martyrdom.
The goal, I think, is this – to be assertive, self-directed, connected, and benevolent in a way which 1) respects the power and self-determination of the other, and, according to our position or their desire, 2) moves them towards self-actualization.
