‘Nice people, with nice habits/ they keep rabbits/ but got no money at all,’ sang the popular duo Flanagan and Allen in my father’s day. I can still remember Dad playing it on our gramophone in the early 1950s. My family liked these sentiments; secretly we rather hoped they applied to us. But I write now not as a nice person, but on behalf of nice people. I think that song is self-oppressive. The early appearance of rabbits in the lyric gives the game away: fluffy and harmless creatures whom we may love but are unlikely to admire. Rats are more successful.
A recent study in Scientific American, however, has challenged the supposed link between being nice and being a loser. Under the umbrella of what social scientists call ‘agreeableness’ — consideration for others, generosity, and a desire for social harmony — a range of studies all seem to suggest that there is no general correlation between nastiness and success, or niceness and failure.
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