When relating to others in a group, find out how everyone prefers to approach a task rather than assuming that everyone is on the same page.

New research shows that we dislike do-gooders.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—There's one in every office, charity, church, and neighborhood block association: that person who always volunteers to take on the next task regardless of how long it will take or how much he or she has already agreed to do. And admit it, you've always found those people secretly annoying. You aren't alone. A new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has found that people who give too much are viewed just as unfavorably by their peers as people who give too little. But before you label the next task taker as a do-gooder or a glory grabber, consider what motivates such people, and you may find it helps you relate better to others.

THE DETAILS: The researchers had 104 college students play a computer game in teams of five—but in fact, each volunteer was unknowingly playing with four computerized partners rather than real people. All five members of the group were told that they had 10 points, and each member could give away as many points as he or she wanted. The number of points given away would double, and at the end of the game, the total number of points in the pool would be converted to coupons that the students could use at the university's dining hall. After 10 rounds of the game, the pool was tallied and the students learned how much each of the other four group members had contributed, and they were then told to take back as many points as they wanted. While three of the computerized group members gave points in proportion to what they took—taking back a lot if they gave away a lot, for example—the fourth was programmed to make an extreme choice. That player either took more than he gave (the "selfish" personality) or he gave more than he took (the "benevolent" personality).

The college students were then asked to evaluate how much they wanted each of the other four members to stay in their group on a nine-point scale, one being "not at all" and nine being "very much." In nearly every case, the college students wanted to remove the benevolent group member as much as they wanted to remove the selfish group member.

Why hate on the do-gooders? In a repeat of the experiment, the researchers asked another group of students to explain their reasons after playing the game. Fifty-eight percent of students disliked the benevolent members for comparative reasons, for instance, "This person makes me feel bad because I feel like I should do more," or "No one else is doing what he does. He makes us all look bad." Another 35 percent gave what the authors called "normative" reasons—they didn't like the fact that the benevolent player deviated from what was considered normal for the situation. For example, "It's strange for someone to keep giving and not take much in return. If you give a lot you should use a lot." Or "I probably would have been OK with him if I hadn’t seen everyone else’s choices, and seen that he was so different. He’s too different from the rest of us."