Episode 29 - Mr Rogers & Being Nice
If you’re truly nice, then you’re treated like a doormat. And if you’re fake-nice, then it means you want something. So, are there any benefits at all to being nice in this life?
It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, podcast listeners! Today we’re covering the subject of Niceness, both the evolutionary background, and the real-world benefits. We’ll look at how being nice, or niceness in general, became the standard operating procedure for humans (which it still very much us, despite the outrage you see on the nightly news.) We’ll talk about the science of niceness as it relates to dateability. IE; does being nice make you more attractive, or less attractive? And we’ll also look into finances and family; do nice people bank more Benjamins throughout their lifetime than jerks and cynics?
To serve as our example of what a ‘Nice Guy’ really looks like, since the internet seems to have tained that word, we’ll use the ultimate Nice Guy as our role model; Mr Rogers. We’ll read stories about how insanely, incurably nice Fred Rogers was, both on-screen and off-screen. And we’ll finally answer the question; what made Mr Rogers really mad, and what did he do about it?
History Links:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030413175940/
http://esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030227_mfe_rogershero_8.html
https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-moments-that-prove-mr.-rogers-was-greatest-american/
Science Links:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/conscientiousness
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/201405/do-nice-guys-really-finish-last
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/do_kind_people_make_more_money