Are You Nicer to Nice People?

Are You Nicer to Nice People?





Are you equally nice to everyone you know or are you nicer to some people than to others? If the latter, do you know why? One way to state that you are nicer to some people than to others is the economic way: The quantity supplied of niceness (by you to others) is not the same for all people; it is greater for some than others.





The law of supply states that the quantity supplied of a good and its price are directly related. Is the quantity supplied of your niceness directly related to the price you receive to be nice? This prompts us to ask: What is the price you receive to be nice? In what “currency” are you paid to be nice? In most cases, you are not paid in dollars; the “currency” in which you are paid may be, as odd as it sounds, niceness itself. Suppose there are two “prices” of niceness, P1 and P2, where P1 equals “somewhat nice” and P2 equals “very nice.” Just as the sellers of a good prefer a higher dollar price to a lower dollar price, ceteris paribus, the suppliers of niceness may prefer to receive more for the niceness they supply instead of less. At which price received, P1 or P2, are you likely to be nicer? If your answer is P2, the higher price, then you are admitting that as the price of niceness rises, from P1 to P2, the quantity supplied of your niceness (to others) rises. In other words, you have an upward-sloping supply curve of niceness. As an afterthought, if other people act the same way that you do, that is , if everyone has an upward-sloping supply curve of niceness, then the way to get other people to be nicer to you is to be nicer to them.





The economist knows that some people are nicer than other people, but even nice people aren’t equally nice to everyone. What makes even nice people nicer to some people than to others? It may have to do with what they are paid (by others) in the currency niceness. In other words, the more niceness they are paid to be nice, the nicer they are; the less niceness they are paid to be nice, they less nice they are.





Source: Roger A Arnold 2001, Economics.





Questions:


1. What does it mean if a person’s supply curve of niceness is vertical?


2. Some people are nicer than other people at all prices of niceness. How would you diagrammatically represent this fact?

Are You Nicer to Nice People?
I treat everyone the same, however carrying on a conversation , with they are polite to me, than I will continue to be polite to them , however if they are rude and arrogant, than I normally try to stop the conversation.
Reply:I try to be nice to people no matter how they look, trying to overcome my stereotypes, but I don't think I manage. It's not something you can describe in a quantitative way: niceness does not only come from your words, but from many-many factors:mimics, gestures, intonation, pitch, eye contact, eye movement, the distance from the partner, the way you stand or sit etc. and most of the people are able to recognise 'falseness' in your behaviour, and in this case your niceness becomes something completely different.
Reply:i don't treat nice people nicer, i treat mean people worse because they are mean.