It pays to be mean: A 40-year behavioral study confirms your worst fears—kids who bully go on to make the most money

If movies have taught us anything, it’s that the school bully always gets their comeuppance before the end credits. Inevitably, their fall from grace will permeate into an adulthood of mediocrity and low income.

But in reality, a new study suggests that rather than becoming something resembling Back to the Future’s Biff Tannen, the class jock is increasingly likely to become your future boss.

Academics at the University of Essex found children who exhibited behavior like bullying and throwing temper tantrums were likely to earn more money than other children in their 40s, according to a study published earlier in March.

The academics believe this behavior is more likely to come from an early acceptance of the dog-eat-dog world they’re about to enter into.

“On the other hand, problems with attention, emotions, and peer relationships tend to lead to poorer labor market outcomes,” the authors wrote.

“It is possible that what is often identified as aggressive behavior is the adaptive response to a competitive environment.”

The results of the 40-year analysis track with previous findings about the future earning potential of people who have typically shunned traditional curricular activities in their formative years.

Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that athletic students at Ivy League colleges would go on to earn 3.4% more than their non-sporty peers over their lifetime, equivalent to about $220,000.

The authors of the U.K. report think the findings should force a rethink in how school bullies are disciplined, given their potential future success.

“Rather than a punitive approach, there could be more focus on understanding the causes of the disruptive behavior and teachers could be trained to identify strategies that help children to channel these tendencies in ways that fit better with the classroom.”

Bullies in the C-suite 

Peeling back the pages of historic C-suite culture, it seems the class bully doesn’t shake their meanness streak once they’ve made it in the corporate world.

A host of companies have found themselves embroiled in bullying and harassment scandals at the very top of their businesses in recent years, in a trend that is probably just the tip of an iceberg of toxic workplace culture.

There are several reports of CEOs engaging in controlling and manipulative behavior, even resorting to discrimination and harassment to get their way. Other times, they can just be jerks.

The most high-profile example is probably billionaire X owner Elon Musk, who in the past used his platform to mock his disabled ex-employee that he had laid off after acquiring the social media company. But there are many other examples.

Earlier in March, the scandal-hit U.K. Post Office’s CEO faced accusations from the group’s former chair that he had exhibited behavior to the company’s head of HR that “constituted bullying.”

“She felt that she was being treated by Read and his henchmen as a ‘pain the arse’ for focusing on tackling the toxic culture rather than prioritizing Read’s salary,” former Post Office chair Henry Staunton wrote of CEO Nick Read’s behavior toward his HR chief.

Read is just the latest in a long line of bosses who have faced accusations of bullying. While it apparently helped them rise to power, it’s often the cause of their downfall.

In 2018, U.K. advertising millionaire Sir Martin Sorrell was ousted from his job as CEO at comms business WPP amid accusations that he bullied and harassed his staff, an investigation from the Financial Times found.

One account details how he allegedly fired his chauffeur who refused to drive Sorrell on two hours of sleep after working a late shift previously. Sorrell denied the allegation.

These behaviors are often part of an endemic culture of aggressive behavior across an organization.

The financial sector is one of the less surprising sources of this high-income bullying.

For one Goldman Sachs employee, it got so bad that he took the company to court demanding significant damages.

Ian Dodd, who left Goldman in 2019, alleged meetings were marred by “high emotions, often tears,” while there were often casual threats of physical violence thrown around the workplace.

Of course, these are just some of the instances of corporate bullying that make it into the press, with several hidden under intimidation or big companies’ ability to pay off wronged parties.

And since the onset of COVID-19, it appears instances of bad behavior have only seen an uptick, with an Ethisphere survey last year reporting a 13-point increase in workplace bullying compared with pre-pandemic.

Turn the other cheek all you want, it seems you’ll never fully achieve the minor childhood dream of evading your school bully.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com