04-10-2014, 02:26 PM
The other version of this is that "nice guys finish last." But I don't think either part of the idea -- that the jerks will finish first and the nice shall inherit the caboose -- is correct. Instead it's one of those heuristics -- we would like nice guys to finish first (or, rather, we believe that it's more socially acceptable to believe that nice guys finish first) -- and so jerks finishing first becomes notable and we exaggerate its frequencies. Jerks who finish last are of no real consequence and so are non-notable.
Still, I've observed some nice guys in positions of achievement and power and some jerks in position of achievement and power. My guess is no correlation. To be fair, that may be only slightly more comforting than the idea that the nice and the virtuous are destined to wither.
(Of course, there are a few caveats. One is that achievement and power change people, frequently in some not-so-nice ways. So the nice-guys-finish-last idea may be confusing cause with effect. Second, I think people have a bad definition of "nice." Most of the time people say "nice" when they're talking about someone who's so boring and bland that they have no real descriptors; not wanting to be mean -- or wanting to be "nice" -- they just reach for a somewhat bland compliment, and then confuse themselves that that's what they meant by "nice" all along. In reality really nice people are, well, really rare, like the vast majority of interesting compliments. Not everyone is smart, not everyone is funny and so not everyone is nice too. But I hear the third compliment far more than the first two. It's kind of meaningless at this point.)
Still, I've observed some nice guys in positions of achievement and power and some jerks in position of achievement and power. My guess is no correlation. To be fair, that may be only slightly more comforting than the idea that the nice and the virtuous are destined to wither.
(Of course, there are a few caveats. One is that achievement and power change people, frequently in some not-so-nice ways. So the nice-guys-finish-last idea may be confusing cause with effect. Second, I think people have a bad definition of "nice." Most of the time people say "nice" when they're talking about someone who's so boring and bland that they have no real descriptors; not wanting to be mean -- or wanting to be "nice" -- they just reach for a somewhat bland compliment, and then confuse themselves that that's what they meant by "nice" all along. In reality really nice people are, well, really rare, like the vast majority of interesting compliments. Not everyone is smart, not everyone is funny and so not everyone is nice too. But I hear the third compliment far more than the first two. It's kind of meaningless at this point.)