Receiving compliments can be distracting, and lead to a self-conscious state that’s cognitively draining.
It’s full of inspiration, but Eddie Brummelman doesn’t find the Dutch expression “101 manieren om een kind te prijzen” very positive. The phrase, which is printed onto an educational poster, translates to “101 ways to praise a child”, and contains suggested compliments such as “you do that beautifully…” and “very good!”
The poster’s message may seem innocent, helpful even. But Brummelman, an Associate Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, refers to this as inflated praise. And his research suggests that inflated praise can actually deepen a cycle of low self-esteem, even if it’s intended to combat it.
It’s not just exaggerated compliments that can cause discomfort. A German woman who dismisses a colleague’s compliment on her appearance, or a Japanese boy who responds “No, no” when a relative calls him talented, might in some settings be considered ungrateful. Indeed, the internet abounds with advice on becoming better at receiving compliments.
Yet it isn’t necessarily a shortcoming to downplay compliments, psychology research suggests. This is good news for the many people who feel tongue-tied on receiving a compliment, then beat themselves up over their seemingly inadequate response.
Compliments that stereotype
One reason that it’s not always necessary to learn to be a better compliment recipient is that some compliments are unwittingly insulting. When black Americans are called “articulate” or US-born Asians are praised for their English fluency, such praise reveals the speaker’s bias: in this case, being surprised that a racial minority is well spoken. Patronising compliments based on a group identity (like “You showed good leadership, for a woman”) can lead to anger and a desire for confrontation.
In general, women receive more compliments than men. When men are complimented, it’s mainly on their abilities, whereas appearance-based compliments are much more common for women. And these compliments have distinct effects.
“Appearance compliments lead to appearance focus and body monitoring Rotem Kahalon,” said an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel. Neuroscience research suggests that words referring to the body, including body-focused compliments, are processed more quickly and accurately in the brain, than those that are less related to the body, such as “friendly”.
One potential consequence is actually slowing down the complimentee’s thinking. Kahalon coauthored a study of Israeli university students that found that both men and women who received appearance-based compliments subsequently did much worse on math tests. Even though these compliments can feel good, Kahalon interpreted this to suggest that they can create a distracting self-consciousness that undermines cognitive performance. “This monitoring of one’s body is a cognitively depleting mental state,” Kahalon said.
Other psychological evidence suggests that appearance-based compliments can be especially draining for women. In a study of Italian students simulating a job interview, inappropriate compliments increased anxiety and depression levels in women, though not men. At the same time, women in many cultures are expected to be modest as well as attractive, creating tensions around how to respond to compliments.
Overall, “appearance compliments subtly reinforce women’s traditional role as sex objects whose appearance is constantly policed,” Kahalon said. Though praise for a woman’s appearance may seem innocent and even positive, “it also serves to maintain the gender status quo, in which women are evaluated based on their appearance,” she said.
While research on compliment response is dominated by so-called “Weird” societies (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic), and students tend to be overrepresented as research participants, cross-cultural studies show that there’s no universally appropriate way to handle a compliment.
For one thing, in some societies, compliments are not viewed positively. For instance, compliments can be seen as threatening in communities where beliefs in both envy and witchcraft are strong.
Societies
Even in societies where compliments are largely perceived as positive, researchers have documented different levels of compliment acceptance (which is often signalled simply by saying “thanks”).
One study of Nigerian English speakers found that 94 percent of collected compliments were accepted, compared to 88% in a study of South Africans, 66 percent in a study of Americans, and 61 percent in a study of New Zealanders.
But there’s a wide variety of ways to respond to a compliment beyond simple acceptance or rejection.
A German conversation analysis found that while the study participants overwhelmingly accepted compliments, they tended to do so not by saying “thank you”. Instead they sometimes commented on the compliment itself, for instance by responding “that’s nice” when told “it was nice this evening here at your place”. (This may be part of a German politeness culture where compliments are less frequent but more truthful than, for instance, in the US.)
Many researchers have documented an internal conflict when someone is complimented, between wanting to keep the conversation smooth by agreeing, but also feeling obligated to avoid self-praise.
This conflict can be especially strong in certain settings. In Japan, where there is often pressure to repudiate praise, 45 percent of compliments identified in one study led to a negative response. But Japanese speakers have are a variety of strategies to acknowledge a compliment without endorsing or rejecting it outright, such as giving a series of head nods or humorously suggesting that the complimented behaviour is actually sinister.
For someone who has grown up in a culture where feedback tends to focus on how to improve rather than on what they’re doing well, it may sometimes be uncomfortable to receive compliments. Chinese children “are trained to focus on their shortcomings and not boast of their accomplishments,” said a Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Florrie Fei-Yin Ng.
“From this perspective, it is not surprising that Chinese children may feel uneasy when they receive praise,” she said. BBC
