There has been so much written in recent years about the need for organizations to become collaborative and supportive environments that help employees thrive.  As such, you would imagine that most workplaces would love to have people who help and support others, who are generous with their time and knowledge, and who are generally good corporate citizens.

A recent study from the University of Guelph suggests that couldn’t be further from the truth however.  It revealed that people who are incredibly generous and cooperative can attract a range of social punishments at work, especially if the culture is a competitive one.

“Most of the time we like the cooperators, the good guys. We like it when the bad guys get their comeuppance, and when non-cooperators are punished,” the authors say.  “But some of the time, cooperators are the ones that get punished. People will hate on the really good guys. This pattern has been found in every culture in which it has been looked at.”

Being too good

The study found this behavior was especially common in competitive environments where there was a tendency for people to believe the good guys were making them look bad.  Interestingly, this kind of punishment would even be metered out if it reduced the benefits for the entire group.

This toxic atmosphere thankfully only occurred in competitive environments.  In non-competitive workplaces, cooperation actually increased.  The authors believe that their propensity to view people who appear ‘too’ nice has deep psychological roots.

“What we are looking for in this research is, what are the psychological mechanisms that play into this?” they say.  “Why are people built in such a way that they will react against that overly generous person, and want to bring down the person who appears too good?”

The researchers cite anthropological evidence that suggests that egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies shared this characteristic, and that it may have emerged to stop excellent hunters from dominating the group.  As such, being able to bring people down a peg or two was perhaps a worthwhile trait.  It’s an approach they can easily see transferring into the modern workplace.

“You can imagine within an organization today the attitude, ‘Hey, you’re working too hard and making the rest of us look bad.’ In some organizations people are known for policing how hard others work, to make sure no one is raising the bar from what is expected,” they say.

The researchers hope that by raising awareness of this phenomenon, it will help managers develop a strategy, and indeed a culture, that overcomes it.