Does It Pay To Be Nice? －やさしくするのは得か？‐

Imagine a race.  Perhaps it is the 100 meter sprint at the Olympics.  Eight runners will take part in the final.  Four of the runners are nice guys, always eager to help others when they can.  The other four runners are nasty, and always try to steal any advantage for themselves that they can. 

So which kind of guy will win the race, and which kind of guy will finish last?  In the English language, there is a proverb, “Nice guys finish last.”  In the example of the 100 meter sprint, this makes a lot of sense.  The nice guys who spend time trying to help others will have less energy to pursue their selfish goal of training to win a gold medal. 

So this can lead to a gloomy or cynical view of the world.  If you believe that nice guys finish last, then why should you try to be nice? 

But a book I have been reading suggests that there are lots of cases when nice guys finish first.  In “The Selfish Gene,” by biologist Richard Dawkins, one chapter discusses whether we should expect animals to cooperate with each other or not, based on Darwin’s theory of evolution. 

Dawkins gives the example of a bird which must clean its body to avoid being infected by a parasite.  If it is infected by a parasite then it will become less healthy and will struggle to survive and pass on its genes.  The bird can clean all of its own body using its beak, except the back of its own head.  It needs another bird to clean the back of its head.  If some birds have a gene to be “nice”, then they will clean the back of other birds’ heads for them.  If a bird has a gene to be “nasty”, then it will cheat by letting other birds clean its head, but it will not waste energy by doing the same thing in return.  So which bird will be more successful?  If there are only nice and nasty birds, then the nasty birds will benefit.  Their heads get cleaned but they can save energy by not reciprocating.  So the genes of nasty birds will do better, and soon all birds will be nasty, and they will all tend to have parasites in the back of their heads. 

But what if there is another kind of bird, which is generally nice, but punishes nasty birds by refusing to clean their heads?  This bird will be more successful than the totally nice birds, since it will not waste time helping nasty birds.  And it will do better than nasty birds, who will find themselves being punished by this new type of bird.  So soon the group of birds will be dominated by those birds which are basically nice, but who hate cheats. 

I like the idea, and find it hopeful.  In many situations in which the competition is not a single, “winner takes all” race, but a long-term relationship in which you might choose whether to be nice or nasty in repeated interactions, nice behaviour will tend to be a more successful option – as long as you punish the cheats!

 

Vocabulary:

to pursue a goal – to try to achieve a goal

to be cynical – to be distrustful of pure motives; to tend to think that all motives are self-interested

to be infected – for one’s body to be affected or invaded by a virus or other damaging organism

a parasite – a kind of life form that lives in or on another body, and survives by stealing energy from the host body

a beak – the hard part of a bird’s mouth

to reciprocate – to do the same in return

 

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