Have a nice day

BY Laura Siegel

February began early this year. I knew it the afternoon
of Jan. 31 when I rolled out of bed and stumbled
towards Commons. I passed by an acquaintance, who greeted me with a snide remark. Seven people for whom I held the door sailed through without a "thank you." Determined not to give in to the February spirit, I gathered my tray and utensils with a smile--only to be shoved aside by a dining hall employee. "Sorry," she said. "I'm hungry."

"Civility is on the decline," my lunch companion observed, and so, drawing upon two-and-a-half years of Yale life, and using as a control my experiences during a recent trip to California, I've determined that niceness at Yale peaks at the start of fall semester, and especially at the beginning of freshman year. Many factors, though, soon contribute to its subsequent degeneration:

Weather. The correlation between the average niceness quotient (NQ) and the temperature proves a strong one. When it's cold, people are grumpy and therefore want everyone else to be too. Hence the higher overall NQ of Californians. People in Hollywood don't just smile because they have white teeth. But this factor does not account for the high average NQ of Midwesterners. Their NQ is explained instead by the factor of...

Population Density. In areas more spacious than the East coast and Tokyo, people don't have to see as many other people. When Midwesterners do see someone else, it is more of a novelty than an inconvenience. They go out of their way to be nice in order to increase their chance of someday seeing another person again. The same factor explains the characteristic behavior of New Yorkers, who hope to act unpleasant enough to get the guy downstairs to move out and free up his (larger) apartment. This phenomenon is closely tied to the weather element: the colder it gets, the more time Yalies spend crammed indoors with far too many other people. Hence the rapid drop in NQ between roommates as the year progresses. Territoriality is not limited to wolves. Evolution has not equipped human beings to share rooms too small for two desks. Note the evolution (in different species) of antlers, claws, and semi-automatic weapons. Roommates are also highly affected by the LDOH factor, or...

Letting Down One's Hair. Once you feel comfortable enough with people, you don't bother being polite anymore. As a prefrosh I was awed by the incredible niceness of the average Yalie, and then the continuing effervescent friendliness of my fellow freshmen. As the year wore on, my roommate and I, who had started off smiling incessantly at each other and tiptoeing after 8 p.m., began bickering instead, and I noticed our ubiquitous friendliness waning. It continued to do so until mid-junior year, when it was down to a casual wave. Our initial saccharine superficiality was gone, our hair hanging down, our clothes wrinkled, our expressions dour. Which leads me to...

Looks. Studies show that people tend to be nicer to those they find attractive. This factor alone could explain the discrepancy in NQ between California and the Yale campus (see Carp, Benjamin, page 6). Individual Yalies tend to decline in attractiveness. As February factor kicks in and we lose our shorts and skirts for puffy coats and pom-pom hats, Yalies become even less alluring. Perhaps it was my attire of glasses, unbrushed hair, and sweats that fateful morning which provoked a rudeness I'd never encountered while dressed up for the Winter Ball. Neither our appearances nor personalities are enhanced by the last factor in this study:

Stress. Who can bother to say "please" or "excuse me" when she has two midterms on Friday and 200 pages of reading due? As a matter of fact, I have two midterms Friday, in freezing-cold rooms crammed with 400 other stressed people all wearing torn sweatshirts. So just leave me alone!

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