Yahoo! Finance Australia, December 13, 2011, Tuesday

Yahoo! Finance Australia

December 13, 2011, Tuesday

Yahoo! Finance Australia (full article)

Hey, you! Mean people earn more, study finds

It may not pay to be nice in the workplace.

A new U.S. study has found that agreeable workers earn significantly lower incomes than less agreeable ones. The gap is especially wide for men. (More From Yahoo!7 Finance: A Tour Of The Most Expensive Street In The World)

The researchers examined "agreeableness" using self-reported survey data and found that men who measured below average on agreeableness earned about 18% more - or US$9,772 more annually in their sample - than nicer guys. Ruder women, meanwhile, earned about 5% or US$1,828 more than their agreeable counterparts.

"Nice guys are getting the shaft," says study co-author Beth A. Livingston, an assistant professor of human resource studies at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations in the U.S. (More From Yahoo!7 Finance: The World's Most Distressed Property Markets)