Treat 'em mean keep 'em keen

[GhandiOwnsYou]

Eh, there's levels. It seems to me anytime it actually works on someone (and it does, more often than I care to admit) it points to them being a fairly vacant individual pointed towards climbing the social ladder. In short, someone I wouldn't consider worth my time.

There was a cool Psych experiment I read about that kinda relates. I forget the name of the scientist or study, but in essence he assigned 10 men and 10 women numbers 1-10 that could be seen by others, but not them. This was their "attractiveness" in the experiment. They were instructed to try to find the most attractive mate they could, and the two mates had to agree to the coupling. What they found was that over all, people tended to land within one or two spots of their own attractiveness value. Based on how dismissive the other people were, vs. how eager the other people were, they were able to gauge their general ranking on the "attractiveness" scale. I'd argue the same thing applies here. If you're an asshole to someone, you may just be giving them an impression that you are higher on the social ladder than them, and it would behoove them to try to sponge some of it off you.

But really, think about that. Is it honestly worth it to abuse a screwed up society wherein assholes are better than nice guys?

Edit: If anyone recognizes the general outline of the experiment and can give me a name or correct any details, I'd be appreciative. It's kinda driving me nuts that I can't remember the specifics.