The Problem With Being Too Accommodating
Half an hour passed, and I got into the car, waiting for my usually late friend to arrive to help her move. Resentment and anger began to build up. But when she wrote: “Sorry, I’ll be there soon,” I replied: “Don’t worry! Take your time 🙂 ”I had it. I was really sick of this good shit.
Pleasant versus too pleasant
Over the years, I have developed a problematic habit of going too far in my complaisance. Nice is not a bad quality. From a psychological point of view, consent usually means that you are anempathetic person striving for social harmony . This is great, but sometimes it gets really insincere .
Part of my agreement has to do with empathy and understanding, but understanding often goes hand in hand with wanting to be understood. In other words, we treat people well because we want them to treat us well. After all, this is what we learned in elementary school. A big part of my enjoyment is that I want people to like me and know that I am a good person. It sounds cute and all, but it’s actually a narcissistic need: I even want people to like me when I don’t like them or I don’t like them.
For this reason, nice people are often too nice . We accept tasks for which we do not have time. We agree to declare a truce when we are still in pain. We agree with opinions that we do not believe. And we agree to all of this in the name of love and understanding, because we think that pleasing others will somehow make us better.
In Book No , social psychologist Susan Newman explains:
We live according to the misconception that saying yes, being available and always ready for other people, makes us better, but in fact it is quite the opposite. You are nervous and nervous; you are treated like a dumbass.
Obviously this is becoming a problem. You get so used to giving pleasure to others that after a while you hardly remember what you like. This is why overly compliant people are also often indecisive. We don’t know what we want because we overestimate what other people want.
When troubles are too pleasant
Ironically, most people are unhappy with what people like. This is off-putting, and studies like this 2010 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology bear this out. The researchers asked the subjects to play a game that included both individual and group rewards. They watched how people react to selfish versus generous steps. You might think they would like the generous players, but in fact they didn’t like them as much as they did the selfish ones:
Initial research into tolerance of group members who abuse the public good unexpectedly found that selfless members (those who gave a lot to provide the good but then used little good) were also targets for exclusion from the group. Two subsequent studies repeated this and ruled out explanations based on the view of the target as confusing or unpredictable.
Why did they want good players out of the game? The study pointed to two reasons. First, the researchers suggested that overly pleasant players caused everyone to feel bad about themselves. Second, everyone else also viewed pleasant players as “rule-breakers,” in a sense, because they did not adhere to standard courtesies; they overdid it. And yes, the other members really wanted to push these players out of the group. Trying to be nice too much can actually make people treat you worse.
However, this does not only apply to hypothetical games. In 2011, researchers at the University of Notre Dame found that pleasant employees earn significantly less than unpleasant employees. In particular, pleasant men earn 18% less than unpleasant men, while nice women earn 5% less than unpleasant women (research has shown that benevolence is perceived as a more acceptable trait for women, so the gender gap between unpleasant men and unpleasant women wider.). When you’re too nice, you usually don’t rock the boat too much, and this can lead to you becoming a wimp . This seems obvious, but it helps to have numbers to support it.
When you are weak, you are silent. You sit on negative emotions rather than process them, and that backfires too. Another study found that people with “high levels of agreeableness” are actually more critical than unpleasant. The researchers called this the “Pollyanna Myth.”
Across studies, pleasant participants rated prosocial behavior more favorably and antisocial behavior more unfavorable than unpleasant participants.
Ironically again, if you’re too nice, you can actually become a judgmental jerk. Kindness is associated with empathy, but if this research is an indicator, too much of it can make you more judgmental.
Finally, being overly compliant can also make you more susceptible to so -called groupthink. In essence, it is a group tendency to abandon independent thinking in favor of a collective agreement. Teams with too many very nice people are more likely to fall into this trap . In group situations, dislike can make you think more independently and look for solutions beyond the obvious. This is probably why I do not work well in groups: I prioritize social harmony over innovation or creativity.
How to stop
Ultimately, the decision to become less agreeable is to be nice to disagreements and people you don’t like. This is the price you pay to be yourself. As stated in this video from The School of Life :
To succeed in pleasing someone, we must first accept the risk that we may well make them angry by expressing ourselves honestly. Successful charm rests on the inherently safe feeling that we can survive social failure … we must accept the risk of not making friends in order to have any chance of actually making them.
However, after years of pleasing people, this is easier said than done. In fact, I realized that pleasing my people is associated with a sense of submission. I felt that everyone around me was better than me, and my job was to convince them that I was good enough. It might work well when you’re a trainee, but in your 30s, when you’re in your day to day interactions, humility leads to all of the aforementioned problems.
With this in mind, I have set a few rules. Ultimately you may have to figure out what helps you, but that is what helped me.
See every interaction as a challenge
Contradiction for contradiction’s sake is annoying, but it is a useful exercise if you are submissive. I usually thoughtlessly agree with people, especially strangers or acquaintances I don’t know very well out of habit. To combat this, I perceived every interaction with a stranger as an opportunity to break this habit. For example, on a recent cheap flight, a passenger with my seat complained that our seats didn’t recline and the crew was rude. Instinctively, I was inclined to agree: “Oh, I know this is terrible.” Instead, I was looking for an unpleasant counterpoint: “Right, but I think that’s why prices are so low,” I said. “We get what we pay for.” She chuckled and agreed.
It sounds petty, but this communication made me feel a little more confident, a little more dominant. It should seem a little abnormal to those who don’t have this problem, but for chronic people who are liked by people, disagreement is a big deal. Accepting more of these “issues” made me speak calmly overall.
Pay attention to the language
Words are important, and as a nice person, I constantly used a loaded language that put others ahead of myself. I was one of those people who would say “sorry” all the time, even if I had nothing to regret (or even when I had nothing to regret!) And when people said “thank you” to me, I usually replied, “Of course! No problem! All you need! “
I began to pay more attention to my language. Instead of apologizing for anything, I said thank you . Instead of saying, “Everything you need!” I just said, “Please.” New concept, right?
Another tactic that helped was remembering that nobody really cares . Most people are in the same boat and are also worried about what is happening to them. Or they just have their own business. Or they just don’t think you’re that important! And it is really very liberating. So you can be yourself.
Of course, you shouldn’t take matters to the other extreme and turn into a chronically unpleasant jerk . There is a huge gray area in between these two extremes. The idea is to balance kindness and politeness without sacrificing your own self-esteem and confidence.