Case Incident 1

THE NICE TRAP

I. Background
Research shows that one downside of agreeableness is that agreeable
people tend to have lower levels of career success. Agreeable people tend
to perform less on their jobs compared to the more aggressive and goal
oriented disagreeable employees. Agreeable employees earn less money,
and are less aggressive in negotiating starting salaries. Yet there is clear
evidence that agreeableness is something the employers value. Employers
want agreeable employees even if they are not better job performers
compared to disagreeable employees for the reason that agreeable
employees are more pleasant to be around.
II. Study/Analysis
Study Questions:
1. Do you think there is a contradiction between what employers want
in employees (agreeable employees) and what employees actually do
best (disagreeable employees)? Why or why not?
According to studies agreeable or nice employees are less competitive
than disagreeable employees. Disagreeable employees tend to perform
best in their jobs and delivers quality outputs. Yet according to Thaler &
Koval (2006), employers tend to consider agreeableness as one of the
criteria for hiring employees. Employers tend to value nice employees over
the more focus and goal oriented non agreeable employees.
Based on the assumptions stated above there is a slight contradiction
between what the employers want from their employees against what
their employees can do. For employers there is a need for them to hire as
much as possible the best of the best employees in order for them to
deliver quality services to their clientele. But yet thats not the case of
whats really happening in terms hiring new employees because some

employers tend to hire the more likeable applicants even if their

performance are not that good compared to the non likeable applicants.
According to Forbes, new research shows that 88% or majority of
employers are looking for a cultural fits over skills when they hire, so
they favored more on agreeable employees because they provide
cooperative working environment to better communication.
For employers non disagreeable employees may have far better ideas and
have the nerves to push and insist them, yet sometimes this could be a
threat to them because this could create a non harmonious relationship
in the workplace. Non agreeable employees tend to be more focus and
engage with their work but they are cold, aggressive and reserve
compared to the more flexible, pleasant, warm, tolerant and agreeable
employees.

2. Often, the effects of personality depend on the situation. Can you

think of some job situations in which agreeableness is an
important virtue? And in which it is harmful?
In every organization it is important that all its members must possess
likeable qualities. It helps the organization in handling important
decisions. On which in every decision making, a good communication
among members and team work could yield a productive outcome.
There are some jobs requires agreeable qualities. These jobs are the
following;

Social workers

Nurses and Doctors

Primary school teachers

Customer service assistants

These jobs require friendly approaches and nice personalities, because it

deals with providing services to the public.
According to Ruparelia (2011), there are jobs that only the nice can
accomplish, because smart, talented, hard working people often dont get
the breaks, simply because they dont got the likeable factor.
Regardless of how talented you are, how smart you are and how
committed you are, if I dont like you, theres a good chance that: I
wont buy from you, I wont refer you, I wont hire you, I wont
promote you Ruparelia added.
There are also some times that being too agreeable is not good. It is when
the nature of the job is too harmful and competitive in which the
situation is that to kill or to be killed, to eat or to be eaten. These are
the jobs that need concrete and firm decisions. Examples of these are;

applying for a job as a sales person working to earn the highest

return on a seldom sold luxury items

the head of a public organization or a labor union negotiating with

the government leader

the head of a military unit task to capture insurgent in order to

maintain peace

These are the kind of jobs on which you are not allowed to show your
weaknesses, because showing your weaknesses means failure.

3. In some research weve conducted, weve found that the negative

effects of agreeableness on earnings is stronger for men than for
women (that is, being agreeable hurt mens earnings more than
womens). Why do you think this might be the case?
Theres a difference how men is perceived between women. Men are
known to be strong, naturally born leaders and head of the society.

Hence men need to maintain the degree of masculinity in order to gain

the respect of the society. Thats the reason why men tend to be more
disagreeable that women.
While women are being more communicative and social than men and
the society perceived women as more agreeable than men. Agreeableness
may be looked as a feminine feature thus a man tend to show more
agreeable traits may perceived by others as feminizations and it
decreases the degree of being a man.
So if a man land into a low paying job because of too much kindness it
shows that that the degree of his masculinity is in questioned. Thats
how the society sees it, because for them men should earn more than
women. And men should hold more power than women. This only shows
the degree of being agreeable really hurts men because of the
misconception and judgments of the society.
III.

References

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/10/04/top-fivepersonality-traits-employers-hire-most/
http://www.careerealism.com/power-nice-kindness-leadership-trait/
http://www.careerhubblog.com/main/2011/02/the-likeability-factor-5-traitsof-likeable-people.html