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Why It Doesn't Pay to Be a People Pleaser

209 points by alwaysmetara 10y ago

divbit 10y ago
> Live with total integrity. Be transparent, honest, and authentic. Do not ever waiver from this; white lies and false smiles quickly snowball into a life lived out of alignment. Words to live by
- w1ntermute 10y ago
  Not at all. If you don't understand how to employ false smiles as needed, you won't get very far in life. This was one of the biggest mistakes I made when I was young. Once I learned how to stop being totally honest and how to be friendly to even those I didn't like, a lot of opportunities opened up that I would have never been exposed to otherwise. Simple example: I maintain friendships with people I don't genuinely like primarily because they have wide social circles. Through those people, I've met individuals who I do genuinely like.
  - runeks 10y ago
    > If you don't understand how to employ false smiles as needed, you won't get very far in life. How do we measure how far we've come in life? Relative to what is this distance measured?
    - avindroth 10y ago
      This question is only asked by those who cannot measure how far they have come. We all have our subjective distances. But if you are a human being, some combinations of the following will be that distance: 1. Sustenance (food, water, housing, money) 2. Community (belonging, love) 3, Self-expression 4. Self-transcendence (altruism) This is a gross simplification of Maslow, but give me some slack. If you question every person saying "you won't get very far in life" with "how do you measure getting very far", you are not only annoying the other person, but also yourself. Spend that time trying to measure how far you have come.
      - kross 10y ago
        I appreciate your reference to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Assuming you have met safety/security (#1), general philosophy of living presently would ask "why measure at all?"
      - runeks 10y ago
        > Spend that time trying to measure how far you have come. Why? Who is the intended recipient of this information, once I have formulated it into words? Myself? I don't enjoy repeating things to myself I already know. Formulating into words how far you've come can only happen while you know how far you've come. And while you're in the state of knowing how far you've come, you don't need to repeat to yourself how far this is. You know.
    - rwallace 10y ago
      Neurotypical people often err in the direction of overvaluing social status (presumably because in the ancestral environment, it made a large contribution to evolutionary fitness in a way that it does not today). If you find yourself smiling and nodding at the above, however, bear this in mind also: we geeks often err in the direction of undervaluing social status. If you haven't acquired basic skills in areas like networking and office politics, X effort invested there might do more for you than 10X effort invested in further honing your technical skills.
      - avindroth 10y ago
        Given the vibes in this thread, this is an appropriate comment.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    It's one of those "be yourself" types of advice. It works if "yourself" has certain characteristics and doesn't work if the "yourself" doesn't or has other attributes, based on the context. > Simple example: I maintain friendships with people I don't genuinely like primarily because they have wide social circles. Through those people, I've met individuals who I do genuinely like. That's genuinely good advice. You don't have to like or please everyone in your social network. There's simply not enough time or effort, but it doesn't mean you can't have fruitful transactions with those people.
    - hosh 10y ago
      A lot of people have some confusion around "be yourself" advice. There are a lot of things that can be unpacked about it, and people at differing levels of maturity or understanding will see different things. This is one of the better discussions about this: https://antiblog.quora.com/The-One-Piece-Puzzle-Chapter-2 https://antiblog.quora.com/The-One-Piece-Puzzle-Chapter-2 Some excerpts: "When people talk about true self in Western culture, the discussion normally tends toward "the Snowflake Model" of identity. That's my phrase for the notion that your true self is discovered by polishing up your understanding of the way in which you are utterly unique, special, and valuable - a "wonderful little snowflake unlike any other."" ... and ... "Am I like a box, or am I like light? Consider the difference: a box has a boundary, it has fixed characteristics, it has contents. A box wants to survive, it wants its contents kept safe, it wants to be properly labeled, it wants to be approved of when it passes through customs, it does not want to be crushed at the bottom of a huge pyramid of boxes. A box, ideally, wants to be at the top of the pyramid. Or maybe off by itself, so that it doesn't have to feel anxious about being judged relative to other boxes. A box is an ego. Light isn't like that: light wants to go everywhere, and it weighs very little."
      - jdale27 10y ago
        > This is one of the better discussions about this: https://antiblog.quora.com/The-One-Piece-Puzzle-Chapter-2 https://antiblog.quora.com/The-One-Piece-Puzzle-Chapter-2 ... I don't get this. What does the author mean by "pie-slicing"?
  - ikeyany 10y ago
    > I maintain friendships with people I don't genuinely like That's not friendship. That's an acquaintance you're using for ulterior motives.
  - gingerrr 10y ago
    I don't think you understand the difference between "acquaintanceship" and "friendship". If you don't genuinely like someone you're acquainted with, you're not being a friend when you pretend you do. You're being a manipulative, self-interested social investor, keeping a volatile asset around because of its potential payoff. Friendship, like romance (but less intensely), means an aconditional (not unconditional) acceptance of another's flaws - not just tolerance for a potential benefit. I actually agree very much with your main point, that false smiles and "white lie" smalltalk really do have their place. I grew up enamored with the practice of radical honesty, but it only works when in a group of individuals with very high self-esteem. The point of faking nice isn't to dissemble, but to make a goodwill attempt to ensure that the people around you can feel comfortable to practice genuineness without judgment. Not that that isn't a selfish and manipulative goal itself. I prefer being genuine in my interactions across the board, the only way to do that is to gradually accustom the people in my life to being comfortable being genuine back. tl;dr you're not maintaining "friendships", but I don't think your choices are more or less selfish than any other.
  - aws_ls 10y ago
    Let me guess, GP is a 20 something person and you are at least around 40 (pardon me if you are not, your maturity level surely is). I think, its a spectrum between extreme honesty and extreme dishonesty, and when very young extreme honesty has an appeal. But of course it's not healthy, just like any extreme. Like you, I am totally for pragmatism, but still can't maintain contacts with people whom I don't like, even if they can help me with other useful contacts etc. Because, I feel, its possible to attain the same level of success, by taking a higher road. There is beauty in preserving intellectual vanity. I know you didn't imply that, but total pragmatism, seems soulless to me. For example, in an earlier corporate life, I knew some people who were the "manager" sort and very aggressive, which yielded them dividends. When they entered the Startup world, sometime after I did, they tried to maintain the similar (aggressive) equation in the communication. I humored them with one meeting, which didn't go so well, from my perspective. I felt, that in my easy speaking manner, I'd given a lot of gyan to them, but still came out of the meeting taking away some vacuous corporate BS kind of gyan. Since I was left with a bad taste, after the meeting, I declined all further meeting requests simply because I could. Felt happy. So life is a very complex experience and there never are any fixed rules. Some times you fake it till you make it. Other times you are brutally honest. Yes, but integrity, is a must have quality at all times. That's the only non-negotiable IMHO. Edit: gyan means knowledge & minor typos
- internaut 10y ago
  And yet the karma mechanism on HN and other social networking websites biases users into toeing the line of what is the 'general view'. The view of course changes considerably over time which shows it is mostly about mood or values. There has got to be a better regulation mechanism than '+1' and the received wisdom.
  - webwanderings 10y ago
    Thank you for speaking my mind. I have been saying this wherever I see these karma-mechanisms being employed (likes, hearts, click buttons). I have not seen any website disclose to explain what exactly these button-clicks do to help anyone? These are basically waste of time and useless. I would not have helped you a bit if I had just clicked the up arrow on your comment (nor would I have helped the HN owners with the same action). But I hope this comment of mine would give you some food for thoughts (or neuron activities). The problem is, platform like HN (and many others) do not have any technology in place to derive the real "value" out of single person's comment(s). Forget the aggregate subjective value, they don't even have anything objective to show either. So if I have millions of karma points, I am supposed to be better in value? And useless if I have zero or karma in negatives? According to whose criteria? That's a failure of social media in general. None of these Likes, Retweets, hearts, or whatever, helps anyone in any substantive manner. These scoring points values do not help anyone in any substantive manner.
    - groby_b 10y ago
      > I have not seen any website disclose to explain what exactly these button-clicks do to help anyone? Wild guess, you entered the world of online interactions after mailing lists. These buttons address the need of people to be "contributing". Before "+1"/"like", we had "me too". People want to feel like they're supporting views they like, and that button gives them that way, leaving space for more meaningful contributions in the actual text. It's the same thing as a nod in a 1:1 conversation. "I'm paying attention, I'm here, I agree, continue". That's where they help, allowing a flow of communication that suits people. Looking at the cumulative number of those... "Narcissism" comes to mind.
- morgante 10y ago
  You could live by those words, but I don't recommend it. I'm generally very honest about what I think and feel. I never lie. It certainly hasn't earned me many friends. In contrast, I have a colleague who is constantly cheerful and friendly. Even when she's secretly having a terrible day and even when she doesn't particularly like you. The result is that everyone in the office likes her and she has a very rich/happy private life too. Even if her day starts off poorly, the positivity she receives back from people turns it around. The worst part about trite articles like this is that they provide literally no evidence for their feel-good conclusions. In fact, they seem to contradict actual research which shows that modulating our feelings and smiling (even when we don't want to) can improve happiness. [0] If you want to be happy, pretend you're happy. Eventually it won't be an illusion. [0] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/study-forcing-a-smile-genuinely-decreases-stress/260513/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/study-forc...
tener 10y ago
Perhaps a better title would be "Why It Doesn't Pay to Hide Your Emotions". Anyway, I'm hearing the whole stance of "everything is good, I'm so happy" is a cultural thing, very common in the US but not so in the rest of the world (Europe especially). I wonder to what extent this is true and how does it affect people's well being.
HerpDerpLerp 10y ago
Hmm well I don't want to hear what a nightmare my colleagues lives are. I ask "How was the weekend" you say "Fine". I don't care that your house burned down. Yep I am a brit!
- solipsism 10y ago
  Why ask then. Are there literally no other things you can think of saying that would satisfy the social norms? How about "Hope you had a good weekend."
  - sillypog 10y ago
    Or "Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- vertex-four 10y ago
  I'm a Brit, and I fully expect to hear how people are doing when I ask them that question directly. If I didn't want to know, I'd not ask. If the question is always to be answered with "fine", then is the person you ask ever going to notice if you don't ask it? You don't care about what they feel either way and they know it.
- wbl 10y ago
  Why would you ask if you don't want to hear the answer?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Why would you ask if you don't want to hear the answer? For lots of people the "How are you?" "Fine." exchange is a ritualized interaction which has become detached from the literal meanings of the words. Like the fact that even non-religious people use a contraction of "God Be With Ye" when parting.
11thEarlOfMar 10y ago
That it were so simple... There is utility in people pleasing that does not end with self-satisfaction. There are costs, sometimes immediate, to conveying your thoughts and feelings directly. Examples from the workplace: Your colleague is a bit chatty and annoying, so the last thing you want to do is start a conversation about how bad your weekend was. It takes more mental energy to deal with them than not, so smile and say 'My weekend was great!'. More seriously, it is necessary for your boss to want to keep you around and letting your emotions hang out on topics not related to work may get them wondering about your focus and productivity. This is particularly important if you're supporting a family, and in practical terms, you really have to be judicious about being true to yourself vs. keeping your job. Not that it's that precipitous, but over time, you'll establish an image. From the boss's perspective, people respond well to confidence, and letting your team know you're true feelings needs to be thoughtfully considered in each case. Showing lack of confidence in the right places can elicit helpful ideas and volunteers. In the wrong place, it can really kill your team. So for me, it's a trade off. I know when I'm being less than truthful, and it is deliberate and purposeful in each case.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  I took the article to be about the more extreme side of people-pleasing. It's one thing to do this as a one-off. Or with people you have to interact with in limited/confined contexts (your boss). But it's another to extend it to your entire life. Have you ever met the person that, as soon as you say you went skiing once, starts saying how much they love skiing? Then later you see them do the same thing, but this time it's about traveling, with someone else. And later, you invite them to your ski trip (could be months or years), and they say, "I don't like skiing."? They were gushing about it when you met, but it was a complete lie. They may have even repeated it a few more times, but one day they forgot. That's the extreme people-pleaser. They're never honest with other people, and consequently none of their relationships are real. They're all predicated on falsehoods (what they like, what they don't like, what they're interested in, etc.). So every time they go out they have to remember what lies they told this group, and oh shit now two groups are meeting and they have two conflicting lies. What you're talking about is not this. False bravado or confidence is sometimes what you have to do to make it through. But make it a perpetual thing, in all situations, it either becomes true, or it wears you out.
spiderfarmer 10y ago
Maybe Dutch directness is the reason why The Netherlands is consistently in the top 10 of the Happiness Index. http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/perks-of-dutch-directness http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/...
- melvinmt 10y ago
  What people don't tell you is that directness also has a cost. The Dutch directness of "GTFO my country" what minorities are confronted with daily is not quite contributing to any minority's happiness (it's a big reason why I moved to the US).
  - spiderfarmer 10y ago
    We used to be much more relaxed, welcoming and tolerant. I blame the polarizing politicians.
CPLX 10y ago
There's a lot of truth here, and I generally agree with the sentiment, and can think of close friends of mine who are unusually good at this and are unusually successful and well liked. As a prescriptive piece of advice though, it has a semi-fatal flaw. It is based on the concept of what you "really" feel and what you "really" think. Which of course isn't how the human mind works at all. Some days we think our job is the best thing in the world and we're grateful for it, some days we think it's the one thing holding us back from glory. Sometimes we feel connected to a person, sometimes resentful of the same person. What do we do if our rational brain says that our boss is totally being a reasonable person but our lizard brain wants to choke him because he just told to do something all over again. Must we not speak the white lie that it's "no problem"? What if one finds their emotions are all over the place, and just not evenly regulated, and you have unexplained and somewhat destructive impulses to say tactless and hurtful things to people? Should we go ahead and do that because it's a more "transparent, honest, authentic" version of ourselves? Or should we aim to be more stable, and do our best to "fake it" until it becomes second nature? Here's a secret nobody tells you: The internal conflict and struggles in life you encounter are almost never of the bad/good variety. Such problems create failures of will rather than failures of reasoning, since choosing between being purely cruel and being kind requires little insight. The conflicts that vex us are are between two positive things we value, like balancing giving and sharing and being a team player with independence and growth and looking out for ones self, or balancing being responsible and consistent with being adaptable and curious. Or in this case, balancing being authentic and honest with being focused, professional, and pleasant to be around. You'll never reduce the tradeoff between those values down to simple rules of thumb, they will always be complex, outcomes will always be uncertain, and scenarios will never present themselves again in precisely the same way. You'll have to mostly make it up as you go along, forever. Get a helmet.
avindroth 10y ago
Pleasing people most definitely pays. That is how the world works; you give people what they want, and you get paid. Supply and demand. Preachers of self-reliance seem to confuse "not letting other people affect you" and "not caring about other people". Self-reliance and people-pleasing are two separate axes on a Cartesian plane. You can be both self-reliant and people-pleasing. Being self-reliant, but not people-pleasing is trivial. If you isolate yourself, there is nobody to rely on! In the same vein, it's easy to be moral and idealistic when alone. The real test is with real people, and whether you are still able to keep those ideals. Wield both: self-reliance and people-pleasing. Then you will be a force to be reckoned with. EDIT: Talking about truth and white lie as a dichotomy is childish. They are tools in a toolbox. If you feel guilty because you lied, then you are a slave to the principle of honesty. If you are thinking about which (truth or white lie) is better for the relationship, then you are a master in command of both principles.
- Retric 10y ago
  Convincing people to buy stuff they don't need is very common road to wealth.
  - avindroth 10y ago
    Give them what they want, not what they need. But many people would have a problem with the above statement. We want to give them what they need. So envelop what they need with what they want. Just like a Trojan horse, once your product is bought/used, they will eventually recognize the benefits of fulfilling their serious need.
    - xiaoma 10y ago
      Sell them what they want and give what they need.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Wants are flexible. Convincing someone they want something is often the first step in selling it. Infomercials are kind of the penultimate version of this. The product is almost meaningless compared to the ability to sell it. It's not a towel it's a Shamwow!
doomtop 10y ago
Previously and somewhat relevant: Why Team Happiness Can Be the Wrong Thing to Aim for (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11902973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11902973)
sevenless 10y ago
The problem is that most of us live in a society where we have to lie - or at least, ignore some obvious and unspeakable truths - in order to keep our jobs and income.
3chelon 10y ago
Interesting. Slightly left-field here, but people with autistic spectrum disorders are often considered to be prone to depression, often because of social anxiety, but this would suggest the opposite is also true, as ASD sufferers generally tend to care less what other people think of them. From personal experience, as someone whose family and friends reckon is firmly "on the spectrum", I tend to be naturally open and honest in a work environment, showing my emotions, being honest about problems and not (consciously at any rate) trying to please anyone, and I think I'm pretty happy most of the time. And on those few times that I have made social mistakes, for instance saying something out of place in a new job, I become very tense and totally incapable of focusing, which makes me glad that I don't care most of the time.
cft 10y ago
It's amazing that this is what is now publicly funded "science" or "research". It would make a good moralistic story for 12 year olds in the 19th century, but now people like her get PhDs in this (likely publicly funded), from the same institution that awards PhDs in algebraic geometry or string theory! https://www.christinecarter.com/about/dr-christine-carter-bio/ https://www.christinecarter.com/about/dr-christine-carter-bi...
thanatropism 10y ago
The trick, of course, is being authentically interested in others. By all means don't be full of shit; don't suck up; live your truth. But man, being an authentic misanthrope (like being an authentic alcoholic or an authentic anything else negative) does not lead to the best possible results.
nnain 10y ago
Happiness Index is such a broad topic and everyone's needs so different that it's difficult to say with absoluteness that this is the way. Some people have a panache for social work, some have criminal tendencies, some like to please, some don't care. You can see success in happiness in each of these segments. I still concur with the general idea the authour is trying to convey.
kej 10y ago
This reminds me of the 1922 article Why I Quit Being So Accommodating [1] with previous HN discussion [2]. [1] https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/1922-why-i-quit-being-so-accommodating/ https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/1922-why-i-quit-b... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
I'll say this - a life lived in service to other people feels more worthwhile to me. Perhaps one of the services is being honest, even brusque at points. Just not very often. Actually solving problems for other people is mostly about framing the question underlying the problem. If they're not interested, then you're done with that problem. "Service to other people" is not some grand/altruistic thing; it's simply a prioritization mechanism that helps remove some of your ego from the process. Service does not mean being servile.
- kross 10y ago
  I would pose that "service to others" if reflected upon, is exactly ego. You can feel good being of service to others, and you can feel diminished by not being of service to others. When you lose the good feeling, you want to do more, to reobtain that good feeling. "I am one who strives to live in service to others" (I am parahrasing) but if this is true, it is more clearly ego a.k.a. identification with form.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    While I can see your point, this isn't about either egoism nor egotism. It's more of a heuristic to ... create utility and a way to stay engaged. I'm not 100% sure I can read ego as "identification with form". That's a bit Zen for me.
initram 10y ago
The author writes: > Research shows that people who are given instructions for how to lie less in their day-to-day lives are actually able to lie less, and when they do, their physical health improves. Perhaps you could, you know, link to such a study for those of us interested? OR maybe point out the author so we can look it up ourselves? Searching for "instructions on how to lie less" produces results like "Instructions for filling out IRS Form 1040." Great.
reedlaw 10y ago
I can think of a few problems with this philosophy right off the bat. It doesn't give us much incentive to act politely. Also the first point reminds me of Sense and Sensibility when Marianne doesn't want to share her sadness with Mrs. Jennings not because she's a people pleaser but because Mrs. Jennings is not tender or sympathetic--all she wants is a supply of gossip.
- kross 10y ago
  Honesty is not exclusive of gentleness and kindness.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    There's an old saying: be kind so you can be truthful; be gentle so you can be honest
red_blobs 10y ago
Our friend group has a 'people pleaser' and it's fine, most of the time. However, it has become a nightmare (and nearly destroyed our group) because when there is a person that needs to be kicked out of our group for lying/being manipulating/terrible behavior, this person defends them to the end and treats us like the bad guy. Passive aggression also accompanies 'people pleaser', because the person generally doesn't ever want to tell you what they really want or feel. It's extremely frustrating to deal with a person that behaves like this.
- teddyh 10y ago
  That’s Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil: http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
Vokrel 10y ago
It doesn't pay to please all people all of the time. It pays to please some people some of the time. As with a number of other tools and strategies, you have to leverage it at the right moment, the right rhythm. If you don't have an intuitionistic idea of the ratio between truth and small lies that are necessary to functioning. People don't talk to exchange truth about the world, they talk mostly to repeat signals at a constant rhythm which sends a larger signal of "confidence" or "competency" or "trustworthiness" or even "this person is safe and stable to be around". Yeah, there's a cognitive cost to anticipating other minds unless you're blessed with some capacity that is never stressed. There's also a cognitive cost to maintaining executive function without being swallowed by groupthink. >people pleasing is selfish and manipulative Your entire edifice of actions is the selfish and manipulative desires of your morality to instantiate itself in real space.
Vokrel 10y ago
It doesn't pay to please all people all of the time. It pays to please some people some of the time. As with a number of other tools and strategies, you have to leverage it at the right moment, the right rhythm. If you don't have an intuitionistic idea of the ratio between truth and small lies that are necessary to functioning...I'd probably stick to simplistic non-anticipatory models until you get a better idea of how people work. People don't talk to exchange truth about the world, they talk mostly to repeat signals at a constant rhythm which sends a larger signal of "confidence" or "competency" or "trustworthiness" or even "this person is safe and stable to be around". Yeah, there's a cognitive cost to anticipating other minds unless you're blessed with some capacity that is never stressed. There's also a cognitive cost to maintaining executive function without being swallowed by groupthink. >people pleasing is selfish and manipulative Your entire edifice of actions is the selfish and manipulative desires of your morality to instantiate itself in real space.
Mz 10y ago
The author is a woman. I posit that this is a gendered issue. Women who are people pleasers tend to get treated like doormats. Men who are pleasant seem far more able to also stand up for themselves and it seems to be a completely different dynamic socially.
- kross 10y ago
  I disagree, I think it is a human tendency because it is often the path of least resistance (short term, but long term can accumulate and be not worth the alternative). So while culturally it might have higher numbers in women, the numbers in men are high enough to sell books like "No More Mr. Nice Guy.". Good book by the way.
  - Mz 10y ago
    So you agree it impacts women more but deny that it is a gendered issue. Gotcha.
    - bnjms 10y ago
      It isn't a contradiction. They likely generalized 'gendered issue' to nearly one sided, one gender only. Rather than allowing for 'mostly'. I think I agree. The nice guy stereotype really does cover the doormat faked pleasantness of some people. Myself included on bad days.
    - belorn 10y ago
      You stated that the negative effect is higher for a woman than a man, thus claiming it to be a gender issue. kross comment stated that the negative effect is the exact same for a woman or a man, thus disagreeing with your statement. It also states that the amount of women being "pleasers" are higher for cultural reasons. You could claim that the culture that causes more women to be "pleasers" is an gender issue, in which you two might be in an agreement on that point if you two are also in an agreement on the definition of gender issues.
miesman 10y ago
"white lies and false smiles quickly snowball into a life lived out of alignment" True story - My dental hygienist is annoying. She complains about her life while she was cleaning my teeth. She only works Wed and so when I rescheduled this time I said I was booked on Wed so I need someone else. So I told a white lie to protect her feelings. Like it or not we are social creatures. Some people don't have the iron ego of the original author and can be hurt by "honest" remarks. Yes I get that it offends certain peoples sensibilities but it costs nothing to be nice to people.
sidcool 10y ago
>It’s that pleasing others is not the same as helping others. Good point.

209 points by alwaysmetara 10y ago

> Live with total integrity. Be transparent, honest, and authentic. Do not ever waiver from this; white lies and false smiles quickly snowball into a life lived out of alignment. Words to live by

w1ntermute 10y ago
Not at all. If you don't understand how to employ false smiles as needed, you won't get very far in life. This was one of the biggest mistakes I made when I was young. Once I learned how to stop being totally honest and how to be friendly to even those I didn't like, a lot of opportunities opened up that I would have never been exposed to otherwise. Simple example: I maintain friendships with people I don't genuinely like primarily because they have wide social circles. Through those people, I've met individuals who I do genuinely like.
- runeks 10y ago
  > If you don't understand how to employ false smiles as needed, you won't get very far in life. How do we measure how far we've come in life? Relative to what is this distance measured?
  - avindroth 10y ago
    This question is only asked by those who cannot measure how far they have come. We all have our subjective distances. But if you are a human being, some combinations of the following will be that distance: 1. Sustenance (food, water, housing, money) 2. Community (belonging, love) 3, Self-expression 4. Self-transcendence (altruism) This is a gross simplification of Maslow, but give me some slack. If you question every person saying "you won't get very far in life" with "how do you measure getting very far", you are not only annoying the other person, but also yourself. Spend that time trying to measure how far you have come.
    - kross 10y ago
      I appreciate your reference to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Assuming you have met safety/security (#1), general philosophy of living presently would ask "why measure at all?"
    - runeks 10y ago
      > Spend that time trying to measure how far you have come. Why? Who is the intended recipient of this information, once I have formulated it into words? Myself? I don't enjoy repeating things to myself I already know. Formulating into words how far you've come can only happen while you know how far you've come. And while you're in the state of knowing how far you've come, you don't need to repeat to yourself how far this is. You know.
  - rwallace 10y ago
    Neurotypical people often err in the direction of overvaluing social status (presumably because in the ancestral environment, it made a large contribution to evolutionary fitness in a way that it does not today). If you find yourself smiling and nodding at the above, however, bear this in mind also: we geeks often err in the direction of undervaluing social status. If you haven't acquired basic skills in areas like networking and office politics, X effort invested there might do more for you than 10X effort invested in further honing your technical skills.
    - avindroth 10y ago
      Given the vibes in this thread, this is an appropriate comment.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  It's one of those "be yourself" types of advice. It works if "yourself" has certain characteristics and doesn't work if the "yourself" doesn't or has other attributes, based on the context. > Simple example: I maintain friendships with people I don't genuinely like primarily because they have wide social circles. Through those people, I've met individuals who I do genuinely like. That's genuinely good advice. You don't have to like or please everyone in your social network. There's simply not enough time or effort, but it doesn't mean you can't have fruitful transactions with those people.
  - hosh 10y ago
    A lot of people have some confusion around "be yourself" advice. There are a lot of things that can be unpacked about it, and people at differing levels of maturity or understanding will see different things. This is one of the better discussions about this: https://antiblog.quora.com/The-One-Piece-Puzzle-Chapter-2 https://antiblog.quora.com/The-One-Piece-Puzzle-Chapter-2 Some excerpts: "When people talk about true self in Western culture, the discussion normally tends toward "the Snowflake Model" of identity. That's my phrase for the notion that your true self is discovered by polishing up your understanding of the way in which you are utterly unique, special, and valuable - a "wonderful little snowflake unlike any other."" ... and ... "Am I like a box, or am I like light? Consider the difference: a box has a boundary, it has fixed characteristics, it has contents. A box wants to survive, it wants its contents kept safe, it wants to be properly labeled, it wants to be approved of when it passes through customs, it does not want to be crushed at the bottom of a huge pyramid of boxes. A box, ideally, wants to be at the top of the pyramid. Or maybe off by itself, so that it doesn't have to feel anxious about being judged relative to other boxes. A box is an ego. Light isn't like that: light wants to go everywhere, and it weighs very little."
    - jdale27 10y ago
      > This is one of the better discussions about this: https://antiblog.quora.com/The-One-Piece-Puzzle-Chapter-2 https://antiblog.quora.com/The-One-Piece-Puzzle-Chapter-2 ... I don't get this. What does the author mean by "pie-slicing"?
- ikeyany 10y ago
  > I maintain friendships with people I don't genuinely like That's not friendship. That's an acquaintance you're using for ulterior motives.
- gingerrr 10y ago
  I don't think you understand the difference between "acquaintanceship" and "friendship". If you don't genuinely like someone you're acquainted with, you're not being a friend when you pretend you do. You're being a manipulative, self-interested social investor, keeping a volatile asset around because of its potential payoff. Friendship, like romance (but less intensely), means an aconditional (not unconditional) acceptance of another's flaws - not just tolerance for a potential benefit. I actually agree very much with your main point, that false smiles and "white lie" smalltalk really do have their place. I grew up enamored with the practice of radical honesty, but it only works when in a group of individuals with very high self-esteem. The point of faking nice isn't to dissemble, but to make a goodwill attempt to ensure that the people around you can feel comfortable to practice genuineness without judgment. Not that that isn't a selfish and manipulative goal itself. I prefer being genuine in my interactions across the board, the only way to do that is to gradually accustom the people in my life to being comfortable being genuine back. tl;dr you're not maintaining "friendships", but I don't think your choices are more or less selfish than any other.
- aws_ls 10y ago
  Let me guess, GP is a 20 something person and you are at least around 40 (pardon me if you are not, your maturity level surely is). I think, its a spectrum between extreme honesty and extreme dishonesty, and when very young extreme honesty has an appeal. But of course it's not healthy, just like any extreme. Like you, I am totally for pragmatism, but still can't maintain contacts with people whom I don't like, even if they can help me with other useful contacts etc. Because, I feel, its possible to attain the same level of success, by taking a higher road. There is beauty in preserving intellectual vanity. I know you didn't imply that, but total pragmatism, seems soulless to me. For example, in an earlier corporate life, I knew some people who were the "manager" sort and very aggressive, which yielded them dividends. When they entered the Startup world, sometime after I did, they tried to maintain the similar (aggressive) equation in the communication. I humored them with one meeting, which didn't go so well, from my perspective. I felt, that in my easy speaking manner, I'd given a lot of gyan to them, but still came out of the meeting taking away some vacuous corporate BS kind of gyan. Since I was left with a bad taste, after the meeting, I declined all further meeting requests simply because I could. Felt happy. So life is a very complex experience and there never are any fixed rules. Some times you fake it till you make it. Other times you are brutally honest. Yes, but integrity, is a must have quality at all times. That's the only non-negotiable IMHO. Edit: gyan means knowledge & minor typos
internaut 10y ago
And yet the karma mechanism on HN and other social networking websites biases users into toeing the line of what is the 'general view'. The view of course changes considerably over time which shows it is mostly about mood or values. There has got to be a better regulation mechanism than '+1' and the received wisdom.
- webwanderings 10y ago
  Thank you for speaking my mind. I have been saying this wherever I see these karma-mechanisms being employed (likes, hearts, click buttons). I have not seen any website disclose to explain what exactly these button-clicks do to help anyone? These are basically waste of time and useless. I would not have helped you a bit if I had just clicked the up arrow on your comment (nor would I have helped the HN owners with the same action). But I hope this comment of mine would give you some food for thoughts (or neuron activities). The problem is, platform like HN (and many others) do not have any technology in place to derive the real "value" out of single person's comment(s). Forget the aggregate subjective value, they don't even have anything objective to show either. So if I have millions of karma points, I am supposed to be better in value? And useless if I have zero or karma in negatives? According to whose criteria? That's a failure of social media in general. None of these Likes, Retweets, hearts, or whatever, helps anyone in any substantive manner. These scoring points values do not help anyone in any substantive manner.
  - groby_b 10y ago
    > I have not seen any website disclose to explain what exactly these button-clicks do to help anyone? Wild guess, you entered the world of online interactions after mailing lists. These buttons address the need of people to be "contributing". Before "+1"/"like", we had "me too". People want to feel like they're supporting views they like, and that button gives them that way, leaving space for more meaningful contributions in the actual text. It's the same thing as a nod in a 1:1 conversation. "I'm paying attention, I'm here, I agree, continue". That's where they help, allowing a flow of communication that suits people. Looking at the cumulative number of those... "Narcissism" comes to mind.
morgante 10y ago
You could live by those words, but I don't recommend it. I'm generally very honest about what I think and feel. I never lie. It certainly hasn't earned me many friends. In contrast, I have a colleague who is constantly cheerful and friendly. Even when she's secretly having a terrible day and even when she doesn't particularly like you. The result is that everyone in the office likes her and she has a very rich/happy private life too. Even if her day starts off poorly, the positivity she receives back from people turns it around. The worst part about trite articles like this is that they provide literally no evidence for their feel-good conclusions. In fact, they seem to contradict actual research which shows that modulating our feelings and smiling (even when we don't want to) can improve happiness. [0] If you want to be happy, pretend you're happy. Eventually it won't be an illusion. [0] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/study-forcing-a-smile-genuinely-decreases-stress/260513/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/study-forc...

tener 10y ago

Perhaps a better title would be "Why It Doesn't Pay to Hide Your Emotions". Anyway, I'm hearing the whole stance of "everything is good, I'm so happy" is a cultural thing, very common in the US but not so in the rest of the world (Europe especially). I wonder to what extent this is true and how does it affect people's well being.

HerpDerpLerp 10y ago

Hmm well I don't want to hear what a nightmare my colleagues lives are. I ask "How was the weekend" you say "Fine". I don't care that your house burned down. Yep I am a brit!

solipsism 10y ago
Why ask then. Are there literally no other things you can think of saying that would satisfy the social norms? How about "Hope you had a good weekend."
- sillypog 10y ago
  Or "Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
vertex-four 10y ago
I'm a Brit, and I fully expect to hear how people are doing when I ask them that question directly. If I didn't want to know, I'd not ask. If the question is always to be answered with "fine", then is the person you ask ever going to notice if you don't ask it? You don't care about what they feel either way and they know it.
wbl 10y ago
Why would you ask if you don't want to hear the answer?
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Why would you ask if you don't want to hear the answer? For lots of people the "How are you?" "Fine." exchange is a ritualized interaction which has become detached from the literal meanings of the words. Like the fact that even non-religious people use a contraction of "God Be With Ye" when parting.

11thEarlOfMar 10y ago

That it were so simple... There is utility in people pleasing that does not end with self-satisfaction. There are costs, sometimes immediate, to conveying your thoughts and feelings directly. Examples from the workplace: Your colleague is a bit chatty and annoying, so the last thing you want to do is start a conversation about how bad your weekend was. It takes more mental energy to deal with them than not, so smile and say 'My weekend was great!'. More seriously, it is necessary for your boss to want to keep you around and letting your emotions hang out on topics not related to work may get them wondering about your focus and productivity. This is particularly important if you're supporting a family, and in practical terms, you really have to be judicious about being true to yourself vs. keeping your job. Not that it's that precipitous, but over time, you'll establish an image. From the boss's perspective, people respond well to confidence, and letting your team know you're true feelings needs to be thoughtfully considered in each case. Showing lack of confidence in the right places can elicit helpful ideas and volunteers. In the wrong place, it can really kill your team. So for me, it's a trade off. I know when I'm being less than truthful, and it is deliberate and purposeful in each case.

Jtsummers 10y ago
I took the article to be about the more extreme side of people-pleasing. It's one thing to do this as a one-off. Or with people you have to interact with in limited/confined contexts (your boss). But it's another to extend it to your entire life. Have you ever met the person that, as soon as you say you went skiing once, starts saying how much they love skiing? Then later you see them do the same thing, but this time it's about traveling, with someone else. And later, you invite them to your ski trip (could be months or years), and they say, "I don't like skiing."? They were gushing about it when you met, but it was a complete lie. They may have even repeated it a few more times, but one day they forgot. That's the extreme people-pleaser. They're never honest with other people, and consequently none of their relationships are real. They're all predicated on falsehoods (what they like, what they don't like, what they're interested in, etc.). So every time they go out they have to remember what lies they told this group, and oh shit now two groups are meeting and they have two conflicting lies. What you're talking about is not this. False bravado or confidence is sometimes what you have to do to make it through. But make it a perpetual thing, in all situations, it either becomes true, or it wears you out.

spiderfarmer 10y ago

Maybe Dutch directness is the reason why The Netherlands is consistently in the top 10 of the Happiness Index. http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/perks-of-dutch-directness http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/...

melvinmt 10y ago
What people don't tell you is that directness also has a cost. The Dutch directness of "GTFO my country" what minorities are confronted with daily is not quite contributing to any minority's happiness (it's a big reason why I moved to the US).
- spiderfarmer 10y ago
  We used to be much more relaxed, welcoming and tolerant. I blame the polarizing politicians.

CPLX 10y ago

There's a lot of truth here, and I generally agree with the sentiment, and can think of close friends of mine who are unusually good at this and are unusually successful and well liked. As a prescriptive piece of advice though, it has a semi-fatal flaw. It is based on the concept of what you "really" feel and what you "really" think. Which of course isn't how the human mind works at all. Some days we think our job is the best thing in the world and we're grateful for it, some days we think it's the one thing holding us back from glory. Sometimes we feel connected to a person, sometimes resentful of the same person. What do we do if our rational brain says that our boss is totally being a reasonable person but our lizard brain wants to choke him because he just told to do something all over again. Must we not speak the white lie that it's "no problem"? What if one finds their emotions are all over the place, and just not evenly regulated, and you have unexplained and somewhat destructive impulses to say tactless and hurtful things to people? Should we go ahead and do that because it's a more "transparent, honest, authentic" version of ourselves? Or should we aim to be more stable, and do our best to "fake it" until it becomes second nature? Here's a secret nobody tells you: The internal conflict and struggles in life you encounter are almost never of the bad/good variety. Such problems create failures of will rather than failures of reasoning, since choosing between being purely cruel and being kind requires little insight. The conflicts that vex us are are between two positive things we value, like balancing giving and sharing and being a team player with independence and growth and looking out for ones self, or balancing being responsible and consistent with being adaptable and curious. Or in this case, balancing being authentic and honest with being focused, professional, and pleasant to be around. You'll never reduce the tradeoff between those values down to simple rules of thumb, they will always be complex, outcomes will always be uncertain, and scenarios will never present themselves again in precisely the same way. You'll have to mostly make it up as you go along, forever. Get a helmet.

avindroth 10y ago

Pleasing people most definitely pays. That is how the world works; you give people what they want, and you get paid. Supply and demand. Preachers of self-reliance seem to confuse "not letting other people affect you" and "not caring about other people". Self-reliance and people-pleasing are two separate axes on a Cartesian plane. You can be both self-reliant and people-pleasing. Being self-reliant, but not people-pleasing is trivial. If you isolate yourself, there is nobody to rely on! In the same vein, it's easy to be moral and idealistic when alone. The real test is with real people, and whether you are still able to keep those ideals. Wield both: self-reliance and people-pleasing. Then you will be a force to be reckoned with. EDIT: Talking about truth and white lie as a dichotomy is childish. They are tools in a toolbox. If you feel guilty because you lied, then you are a slave to the principle of honesty. If you are thinking about which (truth or white lie) is better for the relationship, then you are a master in command of both principles.

Retric 10y ago
Convincing people to buy stuff they don't need is very common road to wealth.
- avindroth 10y ago
  Give them what they want, not what they need. But many people would have a problem with the above statement. We want to give them what they need. So envelop what they need with what they want. Just like a Trojan horse, once your product is bought/used, they will eventually recognize the benefits of fulfilling their serious need.
  - xiaoma 10y ago
    Sell them what they want and give what they need.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Wants are flexible. Convincing someone they want something is often the first step in selling it. Infomercials are kind of the penultimate version of this. The product is almost meaningless compared to the ability to sell it. It's not a towel it's a Shamwow!

doomtop 10y ago

Previously and somewhat relevant: Why Team Happiness Can Be the Wrong Thing to Aim for (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11902973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11902973)

sevenless 10y ago

The problem is that most of us live in a society where we have to lie - or at least, ignore some obvious and unspeakable truths - in order to keep our jobs and income.

3chelon 10y ago

Interesting. Slightly left-field here, but people with autistic spectrum disorders are often considered to be prone to depression, often because of social anxiety, but this would suggest the opposite is also true, as ASD sufferers generally tend to care less what other people think of them. From personal experience, as someone whose family and friends reckon is firmly "on the spectrum", I tend to be naturally open and honest in a work environment, showing my emotions, being honest about problems and not (consciously at any rate) trying to please anyone, and I think I'm pretty happy most of the time. And on those few times that I have made social mistakes, for instance saying something out of place in a new job, I become very tense and totally incapable of focusing, which makes me glad that I don't care most of the time.

cft 10y ago

It's amazing that this is what is now publicly funded "science" or "research". It would make a good moralistic story for 12 year olds in the 19th century, but now people like her get PhDs in this (likely publicly funded), from the same institution that awards PhDs in algebraic geometry or string theory! https://www.christinecarter.com/about/dr-christine-carter-bio/ https://www.christinecarter.com/about/dr-christine-carter-bi...

thanatropism 10y ago

The trick, of course, is being authentically interested in others. By all means don't be full of shit; don't suck up; live your truth. But man, being an authentic misanthrope (like being an authentic alcoholic or an authentic anything else negative) does not lead to the best possible results.

nnain 10y ago

Happiness Index is such a broad topic and everyone's needs so different that it's difficult to say with absoluteness that this is the way. Some people have a panache for social work, some have criminal tendencies, some like to please, some don't care. You can see success in happiness in each of these segments. I still concur with the general idea the authour is trying to convey.

kej 10y ago

This reminds me of the 1922 article Why I Quit Being So Accommodating [1] with previous HN discussion [2]. [1] https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/1922-why-i-quit-being-so-accommodating/ https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/1922-why-i-quit-b... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

I'll say this - a life lived in service to other people feels more worthwhile to me. Perhaps one of the services is being honest, even brusque at points. Just not very often. Actually solving problems for other people is mostly about framing the question underlying the problem. If they're not interested, then you're done with that problem. "Service to other people" is not some grand/altruistic thing; it's simply a prioritization mechanism that helps remove some of your ego from the process. Service does not mean being servile.

kross 10y ago
I would pose that "service to others" if reflected upon, is exactly ego. You can feel good being of service to others, and you can feel diminished by not being of service to others. When you lose the good feeling, you want to do more, to reobtain that good feeling. "I am one who strives to live in service to others" (I am parahrasing) but if this is true, it is more clearly ego a.k.a. identification with form.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  While I can see your point, this isn't about either egoism nor egotism. It's more of a heuristic to ... create utility and a way to stay engaged. I'm not 100% sure I can read ego as "identification with form". That's a bit Zen for me.

initram 10y ago

The author writes: > Research shows that people who are given instructions for how to lie less in their day-to-day lives are actually able to lie less, and when they do, their physical health improves. Perhaps you could, you know, link to such a study for those of us interested? OR maybe point out the author so we can look it up ourselves? Searching for "instructions on how to lie less" produces results like "Instructions for filling out IRS Form 1040." Great.

reedlaw 10y ago

I can think of a few problems with this philosophy right off the bat. It doesn't give us much incentive to act politely. Also the first point reminds me of Sense and Sensibility when Marianne doesn't want to share her sadness with Mrs. Jennings not because she's a people pleaser but because Mrs. Jennings is not tender or sympathetic--all she wants is a supply of gossip.

kross 10y ago
Honesty is not exclusive of gentleness and kindness.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  There's an old saying: be kind so you can be truthful; be gentle so you can be honest

red_blobs 10y ago

Our friend group has a 'people pleaser' and it's fine, most of the time. However, it has become a nightmare (and nearly destroyed our group) because when there is a person that needs to be kicked out of our group for lying/being manipulating/terrible behavior, this person defends them to the end and treats us like the bad guy. Passive aggression also accompanies 'people pleaser', because the person generally doesn't ever want to tell you what they really want or feel. It's extremely frustrating to deal with a person that behaves like this.

teddyh 10y ago
That’s Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil: http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

Vokrel 10y ago

It doesn't pay to please all people all of the time. It pays to please some people some of the time. As with a number of other tools and strategies, you have to leverage it at the right moment, the right rhythm. If you don't have an intuitionistic idea of the ratio between truth and small lies that are necessary to functioning. People don't talk to exchange truth about the world, they talk mostly to repeat signals at a constant rhythm which sends a larger signal of "confidence" or "competency" or "trustworthiness" or even "this person is safe and stable to be around". Yeah, there's a cognitive cost to anticipating other minds unless you're blessed with some capacity that is never stressed. There's also a cognitive cost to maintaining executive function without being swallowed by groupthink. >people pleasing is selfish and manipulative Your entire edifice of actions is the selfish and manipulative desires of your morality to instantiate itself in real space.

Vokrel 10y ago

It doesn't pay to please all people all of the time. It pays to please some people some of the time. As with a number of other tools and strategies, you have to leverage it at the right moment, the right rhythm. If you don't have an intuitionistic idea of the ratio between truth and small lies that are necessary to functioning...I'd probably stick to simplistic non-anticipatory models until you get a better idea of how people work. People don't talk to exchange truth about the world, they talk mostly to repeat signals at a constant rhythm which sends a larger signal of "confidence" or "competency" or "trustworthiness" or even "this person is safe and stable to be around". Yeah, there's a cognitive cost to anticipating other minds unless you're blessed with some capacity that is never stressed. There's also a cognitive cost to maintaining executive function without being swallowed by groupthink. >people pleasing is selfish and manipulative Your entire edifice of actions is the selfish and manipulative desires of your morality to instantiate itself in real space.

Mz 10y ago

The author is a woman. I posit that this is a gendered issue. Women who are people pleasers tend to get treated like doormats. Men who are pleasant seem far more able to also stand up for themselves and it seems to be a completely different dynamic socially.

kross 10y ago
I disagree, I think it is a human tendency because it is often the path of least resistance (short term, but long term can accumulate and be not worth the alternative). So while culturally it might have higher numbers in women, the numbers in men are high enough to sell books like "No More Mr. Nice Guy.". Good book by the way.
- Mz 10y ago
  So you agree it impacts women more but deny that it is a gendered issue. Gotcha.
  - bnjms 10y ago
    It isn't a contradiction. They likely generalized 'gendered issue' to nearly one sided, one gender only. Rather than allowing for 'mostly'. I think I agree. The nice guy stereotype really does cover the doormat faked pleasantness of some people. Myself included on bad days.
  - belorn 10y ago
    You stated that the negative effect is higher for a woman than a man, thus claiming it to be a gender issue. kross comment stated that the negative effect is the exact same for a woman or a man, thus disagreeing with your statement. It also states that the amount of women being "pleasers" are higher for cultural reasons. You could claim that the culture that causes more women to be "pleasers" is an gender issue, in which you two might be in an agreement on that point if you two are also in an agreement on the definition of gender issues.

miesman 10y ago

"white lies and false smiles quickly snowball into a life lived out of alignment" True story - My dental hygienist is annoying. She complains about her life while she was cleaning my teeth. She only works Wed and so when I rescheduled this time I said I was booked on Wed so I need someone else. So I told a white lie to protect her feelings. Like it or not we are social creatures. Some people don't have the iron ego of the original author and can be hurt by "honest" remarks. Yes I get that it offends certain peoples sensibilities but it costs nothing to be nice to people.

sidcool 10y ago

>It’s that pleasing others is not the same as helping others. Good point.