Disagreeable Behavior in the Workplace: Does it Help or Hurt in Attaining Power?

Does being disagreeable – that is, behaving in aggressive, selfish, and manipulative ways – help people attain power? This question has long captivated philosophers, scholars, and laypeople alike, and yet prior empirical findings have been inconclusive.

In a recent study, researchers sought to answer this question by conducting two preregistered prospective longitudinal studies in which they measured participants' disagreeableness prior to entering the labor market and then assessed the power they attained in the context of their work organization approximately 14 years later when their professional careers had unfolded.

The results of the study were surprising: both studies found that disagreeable individuals did not attain higher power, while extraverted individuals did gain higher power in their organizations. Furthermore, the relationship between disagreeableness and power was not moderated by individual differences such as gender or ethnicity, or by contextual variables such as organizational culture.

So, why did disagreeable individuals not attain higher power in the workplace? A closer examination of behavior patterns in the workplace found that disagreeable individuals engaged in two distinct patterns of behavior that offset each other's effects on power attainment: they engaged in more dominant-aggressive behavior, which positively predicted attaining higher power, but they also engaged in less communal and generous behavior, which predicted attaining less power.

These two effects, when combined, appeared to cancel each other out and led to a null correlation between disagreeableness and power.

This study provides new insights into the relationship between disagreeableness and power in the workplace, and suggests that while, disagreeable behavior may have some benefits.

It may also have drawbacks that can offset these benefits and ultimately lead to less power attainment.

Wilson Dávalos-Nieves, Co-founder of Collaboratory.
Collaboratory helps scientists discover and connect to potential collaborators.