Nice guys finish last, an oft repeated statement which has been attributed to the baseball manager Leo Durocher who used it first in 1939. Though his remark was regarding the 'nice' baseball players who didn't have the killer instinct to make their team win, this statement has been applied to many different social scenarios and most commonly to the gender attraction.
It is stated that nice guys are not preferred by women. That women might crib and cry that 'All men are bastards' but actually it is they who 'prefer' the deviant ones. Is it because bad guys tend to get ahead in life often as compared to the nice guys who make way for others? Or is it the sheer thrill of being with a rebel and wanting to tame him?
And of course it isn't hard to understand why 'success' is attractive. Since the time of Neanderthals and probably before that as well, females chose strong partners who would provide the best for their children. This behavior is also seen in many other animals species. And in the world of humans, it is more or less the same even today- the rich and successful males who might be inconsiderate and bratty are somehow more attractive to the females than the nice, sensitive kinds. Success is an aphrodisiac and somehow the female brain has equated it with brashness. Hence the attraction.
Anyway, but what is interesting is thinking about the advantages of being a nice girl. In terms of male and female relationships, nicer females might not have specific advantages as compared to the good looking bratty females, but let us talk about the advantages nice girls have in their relationship with other females. A group of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, and Arizona State University set about to seek precisely these answers in the wild baboons at the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. After their research of almost 20 years, they came up with a whole trove of biological and genetic information.
They worked out a complex behavioral analysis of the females and found that females who scored high on the 'nice meter' were approached most often by other females, were most sociable in general, and had stable relationships. "Aloof" females, though less sociable, also had stable relationships. Not surprisingly, "loner" animals were most often left alone and their partner relationships were also less stable. These 'loners' also had strikingly higher glucocorticoid levels than did the other two groups, suggesting that stress takes a greater toll on the less socially adept.
"This is a highly innovative study," says anthropologist Sarah Hrdy of the University of California, Davis. "It uses behavioral measures that are meaningful to the baboons themselves to probe the relationship between fitness and personality style." Hrdy says the paper clarifies previous work by these and other authors showing that close social bonds—"friendships, if you want to call them that," she says—help ensure the survival of a female's offspring as well as her own longevity.
So being a good, non competitive female is good for a female to bond with other females. This is turn increases her longevity and lowers her stress level.
Take home message?
Being a good girl might be increasingly being viewed as something which is more of society-pleasing but maybe a few qualities of this good girl image like 'kindness', 'friendliness' 'caring' etc could possibly lower the stress levels of females. So it might be good to be a good girl :)
It is stated that nice guys are not preferred by women. That women might crib and cry that 'All men are bastards' but actually it is they who 'prefer' the deviant ones. Is it because bad guys tend to get ahead in life often as compared to the nice guys who make way for others? Or is it the sheer thrill of being with a rebel and wanting to tame him?
And of course it isn't hard to understand why 'success' is attractive. Since the time of Neanderthals and probably before that as well, females chose strong partners who would provide the best for their children. This behavior is also seen in many other animals species. And in the world of humans, it is more or less the same even today- the rich and successful males who might be inconsiderate and bratty are somehow more attractive to the females than the nice, sensitive kinds. Success is an aphrodisiac and somehow the female brain has equated it with brashness. Hence the attraction.
Anyway, but what is interesting is thinking about the advantages of being a nice girl. In terms of male and female relationships, nicer females might not have specific advantages as compared to the good looking bratty females, but let us talk about the advantages nice girls have in their relationship with other females. A group of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, and Arizona State University set about to seek precisely these answers in the wild baboons at the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. After their research of almost 20 years, they came up with a whole trove of biological and genetic information.
They worked out a complex behavioral analysis of the females and found that females who scored high on the 'nice meter' were approached most often by other females, were most sociable in general, and had stable relationships. "Aloof" females, though less sociable, also had stable relationships. Not surprisingly, "loner" animals were most often left alone and their partner relationships were also less stable. These 'loners' also had strikingly higher glucocorticoid levels than did the other two groups, suggesting that stress takes a greater toll on the less socially adept.
"This is a highly innovative study," says anthropologist Sarah Hrdy of the University of California, Davis. "It uses behavioral measures that are meaningful to the baboons themselves to probe the relationship between fitness and personality style." Hrdy says the paper clarifies previous work by these and other authors showing that close social bonds—"friendships, if you want to call them that," she says—help ensure the survival of a female's offspring as well as her own longevity.
So being a good, non competitive female is good for a female to bond with other females. This is turn increases her longevity and lowers her stress level.
Take home message?
Being a good girl might be increasingly being viewed as something which is more of society-pleasing but maybe a few qualities of this good girl image like 'kindness', 'friendliness' 'caring' etc could possibly lower the stress levels of females. So it might be good to be a good girl :)
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