How Happy is too Happy?
From a very young age, nearly all of us are taught to “Follow the Golden Rule” and always be nice to others. As countless soap operas, Oprah specials, and well…the real world (that and Mean Girls, of course) has shown us, however, this rule is often broken. There have been many studies that show that indulging in overly selfish behavior leads to social ostracism and stigma.
Recently, however, one such study that set out to prove the social effects of selfishness conducted by Craig Parks and Asako Stone had a surprising outcome: people hate selflessness as much as selfishness. People think that those who are overly generous or “too nice” make themselves look bad or they find them irritating.
As much as we would all like to say WE would never think that about nice people, let’s admit we’ve all done it. The slightest tick of annoyance at that friend who just always makes you look bad because they’re constantly nice to everyone. Wondering how one person could possibly smile that much all the time? Maybe they’re acting nice but certainly, they HAVE to have some ulterior motive, right?
So, does selflessness exist? And if it does, should we try harder to embrace it?
I have always been told I am a little on the cynical side, so I must say the results of this study didn’t come as a total shock to me. I’m not sure what that says about me exactly, but maybe it’s just a part of our human nature.
Of course, I don’t think that simply because we might be “annoyed” at someone who’s “too nice” or think they make us look bad, we should all start acting selfishly. What do you think? How nice is too nice?
Maybe a person is “too nice” if the others find a gesture purely irritating and nothing else. To clarify an otherwise confused and confusing sentence: if I see you smiling all the time at everyone, I might think that you have ulterior motives, I might be jealous that you seem so happy, I might even find it irritating, but if I feel at least some joy when you smile at me, then you’re not being “too nice.” If I don’t even feel an inkling of happiness, then, at least to me, you’re too nice (to the point of obnoxiousness and only obnoxiousness). Of course, I’m not the only observer who matters, and others can disagree with me and (rightly) call me out as being too cynical/irritating/unpleasant. So in a sense, niceness partly depends on the reception of the community, independent of the nice person’s intentions, but the community includes so many people that it seems awfully hard for anyone to be, conclusively, “too nice.”
…I suspect that the whole point of my comment can be reduced to this: Keep smiling, because someone will smile back.
I agree, Eddie. We shouldn’t all accept meanness (for lack of a better term) simply because being “too nice” is annoying to some. What I think it boils down to is the difference between being genuinely nice versus faking niceness to others.
I find it really sad that people are called ‘too nice’ and this is considered a bad trait. Often people tell me this about myself and tell me that I ought to change, be less generous. The thing is, how often do we tell someone ‘you’re too mean, stop taking advantage of people’? Maybe people think it’s okay to tell a ‘too nice’ person such a thing because they do not expect them to argue. Being told that not only do you have a particularly irritating trait (which usually, the person doesn’t realise they’re doing) it’s all YOUR own fault. Tricky situation!