Colleagues with a temper may earn more than nice people, according to a new study.

In a joint study by University of Notre Dame and University of Western Ontario, researchers found out that mean male workers earned 18 percent more on average than so-called “agreeable” people.

Although the tendency was reduced in women, they still earned 5 percent more than agreeable counterparts, the Wall Street Journal reported. Female workers are less “penalized” for being nice as they are socially expected to be that way, it added.

The massive research was conducted with 10,000 samples over 20 years, from a wide range of career, salary, and age groups.

Dr. Livington from the research team said that agreeable people may also be less aggressive in salary negotiations.

“The problem is, many managers often don’t realize they reward disagreeableness,” he told WSJ.

”You can say this is what you value as a company, but your compensation system many not really reflect that, especially if you leave compensation decisions to individual managers,” he added.

The study is to be published in the latest issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

By Kang Yoon-seung
(koreacolin@gmail.com)
Intern reporter