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Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#61

Post by anonymouskimmer »

ajb wrote: post #13
routerl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's take it a step further: agreeable people don't care about good engineering. They can't, by definition. Standing up for an idea or principle makes one disagreeable. An engineer who is just "going with the flow" is not bringing any expertise to the table. To be clear, there are limits to how much and when one should stand-up for an idea or principle (i.e. pick your battles). Someone who fights every battle is, on…

No, that's massively oversimplified. 'disagreeableness' is not literally about how often you disagree , it's about how you disagree. The OP defines it in the first sentence as 'behaving in aggressive, selfish, and manipulative ways' which is much more than simply disagreeing. It's quite possible to be an agreeable person, and still push through major changes.

"It's quite possible to be an agreeable person, and still push through major changes."

Mr. Rogers speaking to Congress.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#62

Post by anonymouskimmer »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #60

> If disagreeableness does not help individuals attain power, why do so many people believe that nice guys (and gals) finish last? Perhaps because jealous and petty people are naturally inclined to have contempt for anybody with a higher status than them. By hiding behind platitudes like that, they can conceal the immature motives of their contempt and instead claim a moral high ground as an excuse for their failures…

It's also the case that most people finish last, regardless of whether nice or not. Organizational structures are a power pyramid by design.

But yeah, most people see themselves as good, and synonymize that with nice. All of our own flaws are minor, while other people's flaws are major.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#63

Post by kelseyfrog »

kleer001 wrote: post #57
serverholic wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. People at the top have a natural affinity for power. They intuitively understand power, they feel it, and they don’t feel any shame about seeking and wielding power. These are the type of people we’ve chosen to reward in society and unfortunately most people have drunk the kool-aid and have been convinced that these people deserve to be rewarded. And even further, they think society can’t function unless we rewa…

> we’ve chosen to reward in society It's not a conscious choice. And it's not a choice with even odds against the alternative. It's choice with more benefits than deficits. Historically (back to the very beginning of us as social animals) these are the type of people that quickly and surely make high risk and high reward decisions. And those are the types of decisions that determine life or death, feast or famine, in…

This sounds like the evolutionary psychology equivalent of a backronym. Is there any evidence for this other than, "It makes sense if you think about it," or is it speculation?

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#64

Post by AcerbicZero »

There does seem to be a change in the way decisions are being "managed" at least from my perspective; I'm not sure how much of it is related to work from home, and how much is hangover from the "we're all in this together" COVID response, or from some other direction - but I seem to be experiencing meetings that start and end with "lets just do this thing" and almost never touch the subject of "why are we doing this thing" anymore.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#65

Post by pfisherman »

derbOac wrote: post #28

This is interesting because it counters the idea that someone has to be a jerk to get ahead. However I'm also not sure the study really examined the idea too well, and ended up feeling like it's the sort of thing that could be misinterpreted and overleveraged. In my personal experience (which is limited) there's a certain constellation of organizational characteristics that leads to disagreeable individuals attaining…

I kind of disagree with this. Biased sample, but ime the type of powerful / influential people who run large prestigious organizations are almost all extremely charismatic and diplomatic. Very agreeable - without necessarily agreeing to anything :)

Note that I did not say morally / ethically prudent, self actualized, or not prone to being a shithead at times. Just that they tend not to be disagreeable.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#66

Post by matwood »

ajb wrote: post #13
routerl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's take it a step further: agreeable people don't care about good engineering. They can't, by definition. Standing up for an idea or principle makes one disagreeable. An engineer who is just "going with the flow" is not bringing any expertise to the table. To be clear, there are limits to how much and when one should stand-up for an idea or principle (i.e. pick your battles). Someone who fights every battle is, on…

No, that's massively oversimplified. 'disagreeableness' is not literally about how often you disagree , it's about how you disagree. The OP defines it in the first sentence as 'behaving in aggressive, selfish, and manipulative ways' which is much more than simply disagreeing. It's quite possible to be an agreeable person, and still push through major changes.

Exactly. This is an entire paper around whether someone wants to be 'right or effective.' I may know the right answer and how to move forward, but if I'm an asshole about it (aggressive, manipulative and selfish), then I'm less likely to effect change.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#67

Post by svnt »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #63
kleer001 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we’ve chosen to reward in society It's not a conscious choice. And it's not a choice with even odds against the alternative. It's choice with more benefits than deficits. Historically (back to the very beginning of us as social animals) these are the type of people that quickly and surely make high risk and high reward decisions. And those are the types of decisions that determine life or death, feast or famine, in…

This sounds like the evolutionary psychology equivalent of a backronym. Is there any evidence for this other than, "It makes sense if you think about it," or is it speculation?

All ev psych, even the most accurate stuff, runs the risk of being a backronym sooner or later because it attempts to canalize future possibility based on biological history. It tends to contain some teleology in the implicit assumption that humans today are peak human and that all evolution is biological.

However, that said, it is very difficult in my experience to make correct decisions for a large organization if you prioritize personal relationships. Often, we define that behavior as corruption.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#68

Post by kyleyeats »

derbOac wrote: post #28

This is interesting because it counters the idea that someone has to be a jerk to get ahead. However I'm also not sure the study really examined the idea too well, and ended up feeling like it's the sort of thing that could be misinterpreted and overleveraged. In my personal experience (which is limited) there's a certain constellation of organizational characteristics that leads to disagreeable individuals attaining…

We're not jerks. We're people who notice problems. You're shooting the messenger.

Every problem that tech has comes from treating disagreeable people as pariahs. Organizational bloat and tech debt are still issues even when we're not there. Avoid hiring disagreeable people and you'll arrive at the stereotypical tech org that can't get anything done. If you don't have disagreeable people to solve your issues, you have to use the other tool: Layoffs.

Discriminating against people because they're disagreeable is insane. It's a Big Five personality trait. You hate half of humanity. Evolution produced the best problem-solving thing ever, humanity, and you decided a lot of the work done there was just pointless.

The real reason disagreeable people are valuable and can attain power in the workplace is because you've made it so with this completely unreasonable bias you have. They're not supposed to be extremely rare! That only happens in the tech workplace.

Would you similarly discriminate against anxious people? What about people who aren't open to new experiences? Do you shut them out too? How does your ideology square with black people being way more disagreeable on average? Let me guess: You don't hire any and then mumble something about culture fit.

Working with disagreeable people doesn't suck. Working sucks. The disagreeable people just point it out. How do you ever improve without that? Working at an all-agreeable-people tech firm is a Kafkaesque nightmare of everything being perfect and nothing getting done. And you all deserve it because you decided that when people tend to be one way or the other, the ones who are like you are just better.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#69

Post by kleer001 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #63
kleer001 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we’ve chosen to reward in society It's not a conscious choice. And it's not a choice with even odds against the alternative. It's choice with more benefits than deficits. Historically (back to the very beginning of us as social animals) these are the type of people that quickly and surely make high risk and high reward decisions. And those are the types of decisions that determine life or death, feast or famine, in…

This sounds like the evolutionary psychology equivalent of a backronym. Is there any evidence for this other than, "It makes sense if you think about it," or is it speculation?

Ev psych? Certainly. But as a second order effect.

I was thinking game theory, from the prisoners dilemma complex as a first principal.

And the whole thing as a cocktail napkin guess. I'm not a scientist nor do I have decades and millions of human monies to run proper tests.

I was trying to give a little wide grounding to the "we choose" token which sounded to me like the difference between choosing pants for the day or a type of beer. It's not arbitrary, low cost, novel, or small scale.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#70

Post by kleer001 »

svnt wrote: post #67
kelseyfrog wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the evolutionary psychology equivalent of a backronym. Is there any evidence for this other than, "It makes sense if you think about it," or is it speculation?

All ev psych, even the most accurate stuff, runs the risk of being a backronym sooner or later because it attempts to canalize future possibility based on biological history. It tends to contain some teleology in the implicit assumption that humans today are peak human and that all evolution is biological. However, that said, it is very difficult in my experience to make correct decisions for a large organization if…

I like the big five, but HEXACO has that edge to ferret out corruption.
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