Give More Compliments: It Won’t Be as Awkward as You Think

Towards the end of this past summer, my husband and our two young children went on vacation with my best friend, her husband, and their two young children. It should have been perfect.

We rented a large apartment in a new hotel on the beach. Skies were blue. Water was warm. Waves sized for fun. The arcade cheap, and the ice cream plentiful. Sand perfect for digging big holes, which is, of course, what all children want to do all day long.

But all that digging is tiring, really tiring. So, when it was time for dinner, our last night together, the reality of our charming outdoor table at that beautiful little restaurant nestled in a garden on an inlet wasn’t quite so idyllic. The children were exhausted. Their food took too long to arrive.

Our mom-bags were packed with all the distractions we toted along on vacation–markers, Mad Libs books, Hot Wheels cars–but no product did any good at combatting the fatigue and the hanger. We took turns whisking whining children away from the table that still had no food on it to look at the dock or throw rocks in the water, attempts at distraction that passed all of maybe eight seconds at a clip. The ratio of grown-ups to crying children was dangerously low.

On the way out, as I schlepped my mom-bag, slumped over from being beaten down by the drama of that meal, an older man sitting near the receptionist caught my eye. He had an air of distinction about him. He was a dapper man with well-coifed hair, about 40 years my senior, and not a drop of splattered ketchup or baby food to be seen on him, unlike my outfit by that point.

He said, “Say, I was sitting at the table next to you…” I prepared for an understandable comment on our distraction to his well-behaved party. “…and at one point, I saw you put on your sunglasses and thought to myself, 'that’s one cool chic.’” (My sunglasses are rather cool, I have to admit.) “But then I saw you pick up a baby,” he went on, “and I thought, ‘that’s one cool mom.’ You did a great job tonight.”

Give more compliments. It won't be as awkward as you think.

Source: Emily Balcetis.

I was gobsmacked. Rendered speechless. I simply clutched my chest, motioned thank you with my hand, and held back the tears that instantly welled in my eyes. He understood my reaction and said no more.

A few steps later, I was back outside with all the children and all the grownups, with my cheeks now wet.

“What happened?” my husband asked.

“What’s going on?” my best friend chirped.

The other grown-up was wrangling children in dark clothes running loops around the dark parking lot, but I’m sure would have been similarly concerned about my mental state if he had a chance to worry about me, the remaining adult, rather than all the children.

My 5-year-old son came bounding over, “you can tell me, mom, just whisper it in my ear. I won’t tell anyone until I tell everyone.”

But I couldn’t get the words out to explain they were happy tears. At that moment, this stranger offered a beautifully simple compliment I desperately needed.

And that’s the thing about compliments, research finds. They pack a much bigger hedonic punch than we realize or than a receiver might expect to experience. Especially for me that night.

Social psychologists Erica Boothby and Vanessa Bohns recently published an extensive investigation into the impact of compliments, asking why people don’t give more of them. Why aren’t there more moments like I had with that older gentleman on my way out of that restaurant?

These researchers discovered that potential compliment givers fail to realize how good a compliment recipient will feel when they are offered a pat on the back, so to speak. And this underestimation of the potency of their words is part of the reason givers fall short of actually offering the compliments they could dish out. If we don’t think the other person will feel all that good, we stop ourselves short of praising others.

Psychology Essential Reads

What Is a Scientific Model?

Inviting Psychology to the Cocktail Party

Compliments can come in many forms.

Source: Emily Balcetis

Couple this with another error potential compliment givers make. They simultaneously overestimate how bothered and uncomfortable the compliment recipient would feel.

They think, unjustly so, that the recipient will feel annoyed, bothered, and uncomfortable. They grow anxious that their words will land wrong. They are concerned that they lack the skill to deliver a compliment successfully. But those anxieties are ill-founded because, despite these concerns, Boothby and Bohns find that people feel good after having offered one.

Moreover, timing the delivery of the compliment can take those positive sentiments and up their impact. Psychology and Business School Professors Peggy Liu, SoYon Rim, Lauren Min, and Kate Min studied the psychological impact of surprise. When givers caught their recipients off guard, the recipients were even more appreciative of the unexpected boost of positivity in their day.

The surprise factor can come from social connections, reaching out to people who wouldn’t expect to hear from you. It can also come in social contexts, reaching out for no reason other than to spread some love.

Compliments make us feel good. To hear and give them, especially when we least expect it. In a world where it is hard to see the instant impact of our investment on tangible outcomes, here is one place where it is possible. The kindness the older man offered me resonated soundly that night and stayed with me for months afterward. I wish for him that he was able to bask in that glow too. Perhaps he did.