'Nice guys finish first', says scientist

Cads and bounders may have a certain appeal, but when it comes to getting the girl, nice guys really do finish first.

Scientists have shown that nice guys, often dismissed as being wimpish and lacking in excitement, are actually more attractive to women than their more macho counterparts.

Psychologist Professor Mark Van Vugt set up a series of experiments designed to test the pros and cons of being nice.

Volunteers were given a fictional sum of money and asked to make 'donations'. Some contributions were made public, while others were kept confidential.

Members of the group were also asked what they thought of the others and to rate them in terms of status and leadership potential.

The results showed that people gave more money away when their donations were made public. Also, the altruists were seen as more influential and were more often picked out as being leaders.

Prof Van Vugt concluded that niceness pays.

He believes that while the selfless may lose out in the short term, using up time, energy, and even money, to help others, in the long term, they are quids in.

This is because their kindness raises them in other's estimations, giving them higher social status and more opportunities - both in work and in love.

This could explain why we have evolved do things that have no apparent benefit to ourselves, such as volunteering to join the army, rescuing a stranger from a burning building or returning a wallet found in the street.

The professor said: "In a world where people can choose who they want to interact with, altruists create more opportunities for themselves than selfish people."

Writing in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, he added: "By spending excessive amounts of energy, time, and money on activities that are essentially unselfish, altruists advertise some desirable underlying quality that is costly to obtain and hard to control, such as genetic endowment, health or vigour.

"The altruist benefits by increasing his or her social status and thus the likelihood that he or she will be chosen as a mate or ally.

"Through this, the altruists are able to recoup the costs of their display in the long run.

"In other words, nice guys should finish first."