Mental Health

Nice Guys Enjoy More Success

By Christine Hsu | Update Date: Aug 11, 2014 04:49 PM EDT

Cutthroat personalities do not help people get ahead. In fact, being honest and nice actually boosts an individual's chances of becoming successful.

Researchers found that generous people are more likely to gain useful information because they share their knowledge with others.

German researchers at the University of Tübingen had participants take personality tests and divided them into three groups: givers, takers and matchers.

In the study, participants were given $400 in allowance money, and asked to decide how much of their money they were willing to contribute to the group pool. Researchers told participants that the money in the pool would be doubled and divided equally among all group members. Therefore, it'll be more beneficial to the whole group if all participants gave their individual endowments. In contrast, individuals would get more benefits from the group if they decided to keep all their allowance money, according to the Daily Mail.

The findings revealed that givers were less selfish and narcissist than takers. They found that the model used in the study which classified people as givers, matchers and takers was more accurate that the traditional model of prosocials, individualists and competitors.

The study revealed that givers shared more money and more important information. However, takers were more likely to keep money and hide information from others in the group.

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