Gabriel Diaz
Assignment 1
Professor Mengge Li
2/29/2016
On the cost of being nice
1. Do you think employers must choose between agreeable employees and top performers? Why
or why not?
Employers must make important decisions at the moment of hiring, they must decide
between a lot of candidates who are well prepared and have experience, it is very competitive to
get a good job nowadays. So employer should take advantage and must choose agreeable
employees because they generally do a good job, they are liked at work also they enjoy the
teamwork and they really like their jobs. Also they agreed with low earnings, as the lecture states
“One downside of agreeableness is potentially lower earnings”, as an employer this would be an
awesome way to keep your wages low. These employees are not looking to have great jobs, they
just want to have a decent job and have a happy life.
2. Often, the effects of personality depend on the situation. Can you think of some a job situation
in which agreeableness is an important virtue? And in which it is harmful?
Being agreeable leads you to be have good relationships in work, have a god position or
even be a leader, so this is why agreeableness is important “sometimes”. Every workplace faces
difficult situations where this virtue plays an important role having negative and positive
outcomes. One example is when an employer gives an order to a group of employees and gives a
due date. Some of the employees do not always agree with the way of doing the task or the time
given, leading this to not cooperate with their other colleagues. Working in groups there is at
least always a person not letting the others down, here is where agreeableness gets in, he or she
starts doing the job how is supposed to get done and at the time given. At the end, the good part
is that the job is done and almost everyone is happy. This situation is harmful at the same time
because it can happen again and again without this employee that makes all the work saying
anything. So now every time that a task involving teamwork is given only one person will work.
Agreeable employees are “less adept at a type of negotiation” as the text states. So they will
never complain about how work should be distributed.
This virtue brings positive and negative consequences, so one as a employer should be
