Why you should choose to be a nice person
"You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar"
If you've heard this phrase before perhaps you're wondering what it actually means? Cooperation is a goal most people have at some point. The ability to persuade or convince someone else to do what you want without coercion or and the threat of violence. The secret behind promoting cooperation rather than competition is to rely on reciprocity. Reciprocity is a fair exchange for mutual benefit. The Wikipedia definition below:
In social psychology, reciprocity is a social norm of responding to a positive action with another positive action, rewarding kind actions. As a social construct, reciprocity means that in response to friendly actions, people are frequently much nicer and much more cooperative than predicted by the self-interest model; conversely, in response to hostile actions they are frequently much more nasty and even brutal. [1]
So as we can see here reciprocity is the social tradition in human beings to reward kindness. If you do a good deed for the right person then that person may feel an innate desire to return the favor. This innate desire to return the favor is based around the concept of reciprocity. This concept of reciprocity is promoted by the instinct of fairness.
Human beings have an instinct to be fair. If you make the first move of being nice to the right person then you may be surprised someday to find that this person remembers what you did for them. The reward for being nice in this context is that it encourages people to be nice to you back and this highlights the principle of reciprocity.
Some people are nice because they have some innate feeling of pleasure they get from being nice. My blog post is not about these people who would be nice out of instinct. My blog post instead provides a rational basis for being nice (to encourage cooperation). Being nice allows you to get along with more people, get cooperation from more people at a lower cost. Being mean or scary can also achieve cooperation but at a higher cost depending on your perspective.
If you want voluntary cooperation without having to risk damaging your reputation, or risk putting yourself in a position to be harmed in retribution, then being nice is the more efficient answer. What are your thoughts on this? Do you find being nice as more effective than being mean? Do you think voluntary cooperation is better than coercion?