Beware of 'kind-hearted' colleagues bringing cupcakes into the office... they may be manipulating you

See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source Published: 19:01 EDT, 19 September 2026 | Updated: 19:50 EDT, 19 September 2026 There's at least one in every office - a kind-hearted co-worker who makes tea every day, brings in cakes on a Friday or remembers everyone's birthday.But beware: such apparent thoughtfulness, most common in women, is more likely to be a machiavellian bid to manipulate others.Research suggests that providing treats and doing favours for others is a tactic known as 'competitive altruism' - in other words, quietly competing to become the most generous person in the room.Women who performed such tasks admitted as much to researchers, telling them that they felt 'more fake' and 'deceptive' than their colleagues.It means that innocent-looking tray of cupcakes could be a calculated ruse to boost a colleague's status and reputation and bank a pay rise.Academics from Canada and Chile, writing in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, said: 'While some of women's cooperation is actually genuinely cooperative, we argue some is strategic, with a manipulative element.'Displays of helping behaviour, kindness, and generosity may serve as a form of advertisement of one's qualities. Research suggests that providing treats and doing favours for others is a tactic known as 'competitive altruism (stock photo) 'We propose that some of women's prosocial behaviour is a low-risk competitive tactic in which kindness secures allies and reputation advantage while remaining deniable as competition.'The familiar expression 'kill them with kindness' points to this possibility.'To conduct their study, the researchers developed a competitive altruism test which was completed by more than 100 women.They found almost all had experience of colleagues who tried to out-compete them with generous acts to manipulate others.Five different types of tactics were identified. The most common was using food, gifts or treats to foster goodwill, which had been experienced by 33 per cent of those in the study.One quarter of women had witnessed 'performed warmth' where the friendliness of a colleague in public was an act, while a further 15 per cent had seen warmth directed particularly at men. Another tactic involved offering assistance to a superior to gain an advantage.The final tactic was linked to female rivalry, where some women used kindness to foster relationships with some women but not others.Women who scored highly in competitive altruism rated themselves as significantly more manipulative, more deceptive, more fake, and less honest than others their age.The researchers concluded these higher scores 'relate with Machiavellianism and low agreeableness rather than warmth'.