Posted
Oct 2011
Nice Guys Finish Last
Altruism may be rewarded with prestige, but seldom with leadership
Based on the research of Nir Halevy, Eileen Chou, Taya Cohen And Robert W. Livingston
Altruism is a key component of a functioning society, but it is constantly in danger of being exploited. Selfish people can easily live off the kindness of others and, in doing so, harm the group by siphoning valuable resources. Social scientists have long sought a reasonable explanation for why altruism exists. One widely accepted assumption is that groups recognize altruistic contributions by conferring status on the generous person, whether that be through higher social rank, recognition, or simply respect. Yet this theory is not perfect, as it fails to explain why leaders who behave selfishly make it into power.
Robert Livingston, an assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, and co-authors Nir Halevy, an acting assistant professor at Stanford University, Eileen Chou, a lecturer at the Kellogg School, and Taya Cohen, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University, are the latest to weigh in on the debate about the role of altruistic behavior in human society and its origins. Altruism, they argue, may be beneficial or detrimental to a person’s social status, depending on how it is defined. It can also serve as a barrier on the path to leadership.
The original hypothesis—that altruism leads to higher status—is based on an overly broad definition of status. Status can be broken down into two component parts, dominance and prestige, Livingston and his colleagues argue. Both refer to a person’s rank and position within a group, and both can lead to social influence and power—but the similarities end there. “Dominance,” Livingston says, “involves the use of intimidation and coercion to attain a social status based largely on the effective induction of fear.” Prestige, on the other hand, is often based on altruistic achievements or having a sound character, or even “just being a great person,” he adds. More importantly, “prestige is freely conferred by others, not imposed on others.”
Livingston cites Al Capone and the Dalai Lama as two real-world examples that illustrate the two sides of status. Al Capone garnered respect, but only because people tended to wind up dead if they crossed him. The Dalai Lama is the opposite. Respected for his teachings on nonviolence and views on democracy and religious harmony, he receives “freely conferred admiration and deference,” Livingston points out.
Rating Dominance and Prestige
Curious about how altruism might affect the two sides of status, Livingston and his colleagues conducted three separate studies. Participants were divided into four-person groups and were given ten game chips worth a total of $20, which they could allocate however they chose, including keeping the chips to themselves. The different experiments varied the level of contribution as well as whether contributions helped an individual’s group, helped an individual’s group and a separate group, or helped the individual’s group but hurt the other group.
The original hypothesis—that altruism leads to higher status—is based on an overly broad definition of status.
In each study, participants were asked to rate their fellow group members on dominance and prestige. In the second and third studies, they were also asked what type of person they would like to lead them in a within-group task or a competitive intergroup task.
In the first experiment, selfish participants—free-riders who kept all of the chips and contributed nothing to the group—were rated lower in prestige but higher in dominance than participants who contributed to the group. In subsequent studies, participants who harmed another group were also rated higher in dominance than people who contributed to their own group without harming outsiders. Finally, the most generous individuals—those who contributed to benefit both their group and outsiders—were rated lowest in both dominance and prestige. In sum, individuals were seen as more dominant if they were selfish and discriminated in favor of their own group at the expense of others.
When it came time to select leaders, dominance and prestige played distinctly different roles, depending on the type of leadership that was required. In instances where there was no intergroup competition, people preferred individuals with more prestige. But when groups had to compete against each other, dominant individuals rose to the top while benevolent people were least likely to be elected.
Many—if not most—social contexts involve more than one group and are inherently competitive, Livingston notes. This may give selfish or dominant people an advantage in these circumstances and could be one source of corruption in governments and other organizations. “Prior theory and research has argued that power corrupts, but what our data suggest is that people may be favoring individuals with a higher propensity for corruption,” he says. “Leadership contexts are not invariably about competitive strategy. Leaders also balance budgets and make decisions that affect one’s own group alone. By definition, generous and benevolent people are more likely to behave fairly, and are less likely than selfish and dominant people to oppress and exploit others.”
A Double-edged Sword
“Do nice guys finish last?” Livingston ruminates. “In competitive contexts, the answer is often yes. The reason that they finish last is because being nice, contributing costly resources to the group, acts of generosity—these all increase your prestige. Other people admire you and say, ‘Oh, that’s really great. This is a kind person who’s doing all these wonderful things.’ But it decreases your dominance. It makes you look not so tough.”
“Altruism is a double-edged sword,” he says. “On the one hand, generous individuals are admired for their kindness, compassion, and willingness to help. On the other hand, they may be perceived as feeble ‘bleeding hearts’ who lack the guts to make tough decisions that might advance the goals of the organization.”
Taken at face value, the study’s results paint a pretty dim picture of our leaders. But things are not as bleak as they suggest. While dominance may be a defining trait of many leaders, people do pay attention to prestige as well. “Prestige and dominance are not mutually exclusive,” Livingston says.
“If you’re too soft—no matter how competent and able you are—people may not respect your authority. But if you only have dominance and you don’t have great ideas, and you use force to stay in power, then people will resent you,” he concludes. “Being successful as a leader requires one to have both dominance and prestige.”
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11 Comments
Nov 7 2011
This research will delight all the acolytes of Ayn Rand, for better or worse.
It does run counter to the research on how Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. This reseach suggests that Christianity triumphed because the altruism of the Christian community as expressed in works of charity during plagues, etcetera led Romans to see Christians as helping their survival prospects, in comparison to the old pagan Roman way of letting the weak perish.
In our day this contradiction manifest itself in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio, which elected tough governors to make cuts and balance budgets, then rewarded them with recall elections and low poll numbers.
Perhaps more needs to be done to explain these contradictory results.
Nov 8 2011
I believe it depends on the values of a specific society. If it is all about money and individual success, certainly altrusim would not be promoted; it would be perceived as a weakness. Selfishness and self serving promoted by dominance would be encouraged as long as they bring success to the individual and the group. Would this society survive though in the long run? Dominance promotes unfair competition that inside families, teams, organizations leads to envy, politics, lack of trust…
Hopefully, not all societies live according to these values.
Without altruism societies ultimately fail because few share, few care.
But for now in some societies altrusim means failure. But these societies may not last long as we know them.
Nov 9 2011
@RJD
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Our findings show that dominance favors leaders only under conditions of inter-group competition. On the other hand, prestige favors leaders under contexts of intra-group cooperation. I am no historian, but I think that Christianity rose to prominence during the “Pax Romana”. This is a period in which the regime relaxed its campaign of territorial expansion in favor of relative peace and cooperation within the extant empire. Perhaps the Romans grew weary of centuries of constant conquest, and opted for a period of relative peace and tranquility. If so, this may have increased the desirability of altruism and prestige relative to competition and dominance.
Approval ratings of politicians tend to vary greatly during their tenure in office, due in part to dynamic shifts in social, economic, and geopolitical contexts, as well as their perceived performance. It is safe to assume that these “tough” governors didn’t have low poll numbers when they were elected.
To be sure, few findings generalize across every situation or historical context. We know based on empirical research that physical height conveys, on average, an advantage to male leaders (likely due to the dominance that it conveys). However, this was not true in the case of Napoleon, for example.
Thanks again for your thought-provoking commentary!
Nov 9 2011
@Adrian
I appreciate your insightful observation, Adrian. Indeed, research has shown that preferences are predicted to some degree by values. Individuals, or cultures, that value universalism and benevolence will likely place a different premium on leader altruism compared with individuals or cultures that value power and achievement. I also agree with your idea that effectiveness may depend on whether one is looking at long-term versus short-term viability. For example, there is considerable literature showing that Narcissism (which contains a dominance component) tends to predict leader emergence in a number of contexts. At the same time, research shows that the appeal of narcissists is short-lived. In the long run, narcissism becomes more of a liability than an asset, as people gain increasing awareness of narcissists’ self-interested and Machiavellian motives and tendencies.
Your second statement is a bit more challenging. It’s not clear that dominance is unfair or that it promotes envy or mistrust. In fact, some data suggest that dominance may actually facilitate group cohesiveness and functioning when a strict hierarchy is required for effective functioning (e.g., a militaristic organization). On the other hand, it has also been shown to disrupt cohesiveness and cooperation (e.g., a creative context). Clearly, you raise an interesting issue that deserves more empirical attention.
Nov 9 2011
Argh. Dr. Livingston needs to read some of the work by Goleman on emotional intelligence. All leaders don’t need to be Tarzan. They don’t need to be Jane, either. Ginni Rometty is a good example….she’s no pushover, but she’s clearly very strong in her listening skills and conviction.
John Heinrich, Chief Mentor
American School of Entrepreneurship
www.theasoe.com
Nov 9 2011
Is there research that has attempted to sample a group of real world people, collect input values such as charitable contributions, volunteer hours, reputation (1 for Hitler, 3 for Mother Theresa) etc., and then correlate to some output values such as income, lifespan, number of reports, google hits, and some indices such as Hay rating or combination of all of the above?
This would certainly take quite a bit of work, but would perhaps capture dynamics not present in the reported experiment. Given my view of leadership is that it is based on trust- which is somewhat independent of altruism- I would not expect a strong correlation one way or the other.
As for me and my house, though- treat others the way you want to be treated is still solid advice.
Nov 10 2011
This is very interesting stuff. I’ve done some training on leadership and communication styles and the predominant message in most of those is the need for flexibility. Whether one is dominant by nature or altruistic by nature, they need to demonstrate the ability to alter their methods to the needs of the group or individual. I don’t suggest that they always need to be flexible. Sometimes being a leader truly does mean making very difficult decisions for the long-term benefit of the organization.
Nov 10 2011
@john
The link between Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and the Tarzan, Jane metaphor is not readily apparent to me. EQ (or even IQ) is not inherently related to altruism, or even dominance or prestige. Thus I’m not sure how it is relevant to the current research. Some studies have investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership (or life) outcomes, but that was not the goal of our study.
Nov 10 2011
@Dirk
I really like your study idea, though it would be challenging to carry out such an experiment in the field or laboratory.
I agree that trust and altruism are distinct. However, I am not sure that they are totally independent of one another. We have data showing that “trustworthiness” (as assessed by a measure called the HEXACO “Honesty-Humility” subscale) is positively and significantly correlated with altruism/generosity, measured using the “Social Value Orientation” scale or behavioral outcomes such as monetary contributions in the “Dictator Game”, in which an individual has unilateral discretion to contribute any or no resources to another person. So trustworthiness and generosity appear to be related to some degree.
A different question, and one that I think is particularly intriguing, concerns the relationship between trust and trustworthiness. Are trusted leaders actually deserving of the trust that people invest in them? Historically, there are many leaders who were trusted by followers, but betrayed that trust by behaving in selfish and devious ways. Conversely, there might be individuals who are genuinely trustworthy, but are not able, for whatever reason, to earn the trust and confidence of others. The correspondence between trust and trustworthiness, and how they are related to leader emergence and leader performance are ripe questions for future research. Thanks for your comments!
p.s., I concur that the golden rule is always a good lesson to follow
Nov 10 2011
@Jeff
You make a very good point. As you mention, some situations may require decisiveness and assertiveness whereas others may involve listening and compromise.
It is important to clarify that our study investigated “leader emergence” rather than “leader effectiveness”. In other words, our study focused on which individuals attained a leadership role in a given context, rather than how well that person performed in the leadership role. Thus our study doesn’t address the question of whether the people elected are actually good or bad leaders. It is quite possible that the individuals who are favored by others are not necessarily best suited for the leadership position.
Nov 30 2011
Interesting research and comments. If one were to use Mother Theresa as an example, she displayed self-sacrifice yet had the ability to be very tough when needed. The challenge with effective leadership is to flexible with the skill set that is needed. Being extremely amiable or extremely harsh will certainly work in certain situations. Effective leaders are able to straddle the continuum of communication styles. It is synonymous with a builder using the right tool for the right job. Although, you can use a hammer to sink a screw, a screwdriver will be more efficient and more effective long term.