Why unpleasant people often succeed

In history there exists a lot of examples of how unpleasant, oppressive and intolerant to other people with the brilliance reached career heights. First, who immediately comes to mind - this is Steve Jobs-led Apple which was saved from bankruptcy and has acquired the status of one of the most successful companies in the world.

This happened despite the fact that Jobs put it mildly, has not proved particularly patience and tact at communicating with colleagues, regularly allowing yourself to let go of derogatory comments about their work, and reproaches strew curses.

You might assume that people are successfully repelling welcoming because they are an order of magnitude more intelligent and creative, but new research shows that this is not true.

It turns out that nasty person is better able to defend their own ideas, even when they seem incomprehensible to most, or both do not coincide with the common point of view.

The study, which was described in the official blog of the British Psychological Society, researchers Samuel Hunter (Samuel Hunter) and Lily Kushenberri (Lily Cushenberry) specifically focused all their attention on the people who have been hard to call pleasant. This fall those who were inherent absurdity, self-centeredness, stubbornness and hostility towards others.

First, about 200 graduate students have passed tests designed to study personality type. Also, students were asked to provide data on their average score and the results of the academic evaluation test, which they passed at university. Thus the researchers were able to measure their cognitive ability and to evaluate the achievements in the study.

Then each student was given an individual task: in 10 minutes it was necessary to offer solutions to the marketing problems. In the next step the researchers divided the students in the groups of three each and asked for 20 minutes already jointly develop a marketing plan.

As expected, no problems with "nuisance" during the execution of the individual tasks have arisen. However, when the organized group, the following happened: the idea of ​​students with severe nature much more frequently used in the final product.

In the second stage of the experiment the researchers wanted to find out whether the test unpleasant people discomfort when putting them in certain situations. This time, the subjects became almost three hundred students, who were instructed to come up with a gift for the university. Girls and boys were seated on one of the computers, they should interact with two other people in online chat. The subjects did not know that their interlocutors in chat also worked on the research: they were instructed to give an approving or disapproving an assessment test ideas.

Once a gift to the university was over, it received a new task: to come up with several options of how the room will look like in the future of the hostel. Again, two other buddies in the chat were bogus people working for scientists. Only this time, in addition to feedback, they were instructed to share with the students and their own ideas.

The results of the first experiment were confirmed... When the students come up with their own ideas, bad character is not made itself felt. But when their sides began to share their own thoughts and try on the role of critics, Subjects bent his line.

Experiments have shown that repulsive and oppressive people do not mind criticism, and convinces in his own right. The mechanism works, and vice versa: the positive in all respects, people are more receptive to positive feedback.

Scientists admit that in the conducted research has several limitations. Firstly, the participants in the experiment were the only young people, students in universities, and therefore the results can not be applied to the general population. Secondly, it is not clear whether the poor benefit over the long term, and then in the surrounding immune to despots and their ideas.

It turns out, is not necessarily bad people smarter or more creative, here is important: they do not abandon their ideas, even under the pressure of negative feedback. They have a lot to learn. No need to be an evil genius, to to achieve successIt is simply not enough to withdraw into themselves after each bad reviews that you hear in your address. It should be a little more persistent and believe in themselves and their own strength.

The truth is: hard people are better adapted to the competitive environment, and delicate - with their constant concessions and polite smiles - are far behind. We do not encourage you to become tyrants, but simply advised to be a little more insistent.