I think it’s false to suggest that pleasantries are being outright faked. This person is probably not sitting there going, “Oh, woe is me, I have to pay the horrible price of smiling and being nice to these imbeciles in order to make them give me what I want; I would never do that otherwise.” In fact, why would he even want his coworkers to visit his desk more if he had such utter contempt for them that he had to fake affection wholesale?
Rather, like many people, there’s a part of him which would probably like to be a nicer person overall, but he can’t always bring himself to live up to the ideal. “People will visit my desk more” is a good immediate incentive to be a better person. The coworker who wants more people to visit their desk is also affected by the results of his own behavior. He’ll probably be happier because of the visitations, and his happiness would cause him to smile more, and the very act of smiling would make him even more happy. After a while the “initial motivation,” whether it was 100% selfish “I want people to visit my desk more; damn their own desires” or the 100% altruistic “I want to manipulate myself into being a nicer person,” or, more likely, a mixture of the two, has faded away, and all that remains is the slightly modified, more pleasant person.
I think it’s false to suggest that pleasantries are being outright faked. This person is probably not sitting there going, “Oh, woe is me, I have to pay the horrible price of smiling and being nice to these imbeciles in order to make them give me what I want; I would never do that otherwise.” In fact, why would he even want his coworkers to visit his desk more if he had such utter contempt for them that he had to fake affection wholesale?
Rather, like many people, there’s a part of him which would probably like to be a nicer person overall, but he can’t always bring himself to live up to the ideal. “People will visit my desk more” is a good immediate incentive to be a better person. The coworker who wants more people to visit their desk is also affected by the results of his own behavior. He’ll probably be happier because of the visitations, and his happiness would cause him to smile more, and the very act of smiling would make him even more happy. After a while the “initial motivation,” whether it was 100% selfish “I want people to visit my desk more; damn their own desires” or the 100% altruistic “I want to manipulate myself into being a nicer person,” or, more likely, a mixture of the two, has faded away, and all that remains is the slightly modified, more pleasant person.