That might be because of a perception that, at least in business, nice guys finish last. In the previous issue of The Atlantic, Jerry Useem reported that there are some perks to being a jerk—or at least, an ultra-confident, occasional rule-breaker.

But other research shows that in many situations, it pays to be nice. Not because it helps other people, but because it helps you.

Let’s say you’re a machiavellian automaton out in the world. You have no scruples and no basic sense of human decency. The only thing that drives you is an unyielding desire to scramble to the top of the ladder. In that case, Rand says, “when you have one-off interactions with someone, then it’s in your self-interest to take advantage of them.” (You cut in line for the bathroom at the museum because you don’t live in that town anyway—that sort of thing).

But if you’re interacting with someone repeatedly, like in an office environment, it’s in your best interest to be cooperative, Rand says. Usually, colleagues work together for longer than just a few days. People start to realize that if they yield to a co-worker one day, he or she will yield to them the next.

And even if that specific person doesn’t pay the niceness back, someone else might. According to the theory of indirect reciprocity, others might take notice of your kindliness and form a higher opinion of you in general, Rand says. Eventually, you might be able to cash in all that good will in the form of a huge favor or pay raise. It’s worth noting that this works best if bosses highlight their employees’ cooperative behaviors, rather than their sales figures. But the point remains: At work, everyone’s playing a long game—one in which the spoils go to the accommodating.

Of course, Rand says, there are some companies where this understanding of reciprocity does not exist. Instead, the prevailing ethos is “no matter what you do for me today, I will not cooperate with you tomorrow.”

He recommends that CEOs discourage that kind of thinking for the sake of their bottom lines. “What an organization is a bunch of people trying to do something together,” he said. “The goal of a business is to get the members of the organization to put the good of the organization ahead of their own personal good.”

The conclusions of Rand’s studies support corporate do-gooders. Judging by his research, you should be nice even if you don’t trust the other person. In fact, you should keep on being nice even if the other person screws you over.

In one experiment, he found that people playing an unpredictable prisoner’s-dilemma type game benefitted from being lenient—forgiving their partner for acting against them. The same holds true in the business environment, which can be similarly “noisy,” as economists say. Sometimes, when someone is trying to undermine you, they’re actually trying to undermine you. But other times, it’s just an accident. If someone doesn’t credit you for a big idea in a meeting, you can’t know if he or she just forgot, or if it was an intentional slight. According to Rand’s research, you shouldn’t, say, turn around and tattle to the boss about that person’s chronic tardiness—at least not until he or she sabotages you at least a couple more times.