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"Nice" is the wrong way to put it. The article is a sensationalist distillation of several decades' worth of fundamental work - what the Gottman Institute has confirmed (not discovered) is that empathy matters. People who are "always nice" around sourpusses aren't actually being "nice" they're being "cheerful." A cheerful person surrounded by cranky people isn't empathetic, they're tone-deaf. They will rub you the wrong way. An empathetic person, on the other hand, assesses that everyone else in the room isn't in the same headspace and will work to improve their local area in as low-impact a manner as possible.