We must recognize the value of expressing gratitude to others from time to time.
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Harvard Business Review” (ID: hbrchinese), Author: HBR-China.
Said Little Buddha
Do you often receive compliments from others? It seems obvious that getting compliments makes people feel better. Who will be unhappy if you are praised for your way of coping with stressful situations at work, your taste in dress, or your presentation skills? But in reality, we often don’t put compliments on others into practice. Although everyone has such an idea, they often give up this low-cost opportunity for others to feel appreciated and valued. Why is this happening?
Establishing a positive corporate culture that allows employees and managers to support each other should be the top priority of the organization. Expressing compliments and gratitude is essential to maintaining employee morale. Gratitude can make employees feel that they are valued, and positive feedback can reduce the negative impact of stress on employee performance.
Neuroscientists say that the brain’s response to praise is similar to its response to monetary rewards. Former Ford CEO Alan Mulally (Alan Mulally) said, “At every stage of the development process of a company, it is important to appreciate, respect, and thank employees.” However, although Expressing compliments and gratitude is important for building a positive organizational culture, but our research shows that people may not follow Mulally’s advice because they underestimate the positive impact that praising others can have.
In two independent studies, we asked participants to estimate how others felt after receiving compliments, and then asked them to praise others, comparing the actual feelings of the complied person with the participants’ prior estimates. Compliments in the two experiments were the participants’ friends and strangers. Both studies found that participants underestimated the positive impact of their praise on each other. Participants anticipated that the compliment made others happy is lower than the actual level, and even felt that compliment would make the other person unhappy. The degree of mood improvement of people who received compliments was higher than the expectations of compliers in both studies.
On the surface, getting compliments makes people feel better, which seems obvious. Who will be unhappy if you are praised for your way of coping with stressful situations at work, your taste in dress, or your presentation skills? 90 employees were asked% Thinks that people should be praised more. But we often do not put it into practice. In an experiment, participants wrote down compliments to their friends, but only 50% of them sent compliments to friends when they had the opportunity, even the most difficult part—thinking out what the other party deserves to be praised— -Has been completed. Although everyone wants to praise others more, people often give up this low-cost opportunity to make others feel appreciated and valued.
The experiment revealed an important psychological barrier in the process of establishing a positive organizational culture: Wrong estimation of expectations. When considering whether to express compliments or gratitude to others, people will have doubts in their hearts. We have found that people are overly worried about their ability to express compliments (“What should I do if I make the other person embarrassed?”). Worry makes us overly pessimistic about the impact of our messages. Pessimism makes us suppress this behavior that makes everyone feel better.
What’s worse is that even after actually praising others, we ask participants to evaluate each other’s feelings, and their miscalculations will remain unchanged. They are unable to fully realize the positive effects of praise and still underestimate the value of their praise, which shows that this kind of misconception is quite stubborn.
To overcome this misconception,there is a way to look at your compliments from the other person’s point of view. Don’t pay too much attention to whether your expression is perfect or not, but pay more attention to the warmth conveyed by the praise. A study found that paying attention to the warmth, sincerity, and friendliness conveyed by praise makes people more willing to praise others. However, if there is no reminder, people will go their own way, be hindered by the tendency to pay attention to their own shortcomings, and cannot praise others as much as they want.
It’s not just praise that is undervalued. Research shows that people also underestimate the positive feelings of receiving gratitude. In one study, participants wrote letters expressing their gratitude to someone. The recipient was then asked how he felt when he received the thank-you letter. The study compared the receiver’s feelings with the participants’ expectations and found that the participants underestimated the other’s positive feelings and overestimated the other’s embarrassment. This result once again shows that people are overly pessimistic and therefore unwilling to express gratitude, but this can actually make the other person feel better.
You may be worried that praise can produce positive effects only because it is scarce; giving praise frequently will reduce its value or appear less sincere. Our research