Jimmy Fallon Scores One for the Nice Guys

TIME:

Last night, Jimmy Fallon took over the host chair on The Tonight Show. Judging from the early reviews — “brilliant” and “smashing success”  were being thrown around — score one for the good guys.

Is a man that GQ called “joyful, easy, breezy” simply a talented entertainer getting the chance to slow-jam the news on a big stage? Or is he a network bet that America is ready for some nice?

Fallon’s affable goofiness — topical humor that pokes rather than cuts — seems to play well in a culture where nice can be risky.
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Research indicates there is a financial cost for being nice. Timothy Judge of Notre Dame and a team published a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology called “Do Nice Guys — And Gals — Really Finish Last?”
At least as far as salary is concerned, the answer to the title’s question points to yes. Keeping in mind that psychologists say nice means “agreeable,” the research found that “moderately disagreeable” men earn an average of 18 percent more a year than their friendlier peers. (“Moderately disagreeable” is an important distinction because plain disagreeable veers off into personality disorders.)

Read the whole story: TIME