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Going the extra mile won't win you any friends at the office.

No one wants to work with selfish people. But those who put the interests of the group first are just as liable to be ostracized by their colleagues, according to new research.

"There is a pretty broad dislike of unselfish people," says Craig Parks, a social psychologist at Washington State University who led the research.

In a series of studies, introductory psychology students were given pools of points they could either keep or give up in exchange for meal service vouchers. Participants were told that the more they gave up points, the better the group's chances would be of receiving a monetary reward.

The groupings of five people, however, were rigged. While most participants would swap one point for each voucher, one member of the group would either snatch up vouchers without giving away any points or would give up a lot of points but only take a few vouchers.

While most of the participants said they would not want to work with a person who kept taking vouchers without giving up points, a majority also said they wouldn't want to work again with the selfless member of the group, either.

Why?

People who volunteer to work over the weekend or who gladly sign up for every little task raise the bar on what's expected of everyone else and thereby earn the animosity of their co-workers, according to the research, published in the current issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Participants in the studies told researchers the selfless person "is making them look bad," Dr. Parks says.

Never mind that the selfless person's actions were meant to help the group.

"People aren't looking at what is objectively good, they're focusing more on the subjective aspect of it," Dr. Parks says.

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