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Praise is like a spring breeze, it can make the heart of the praised feel warm and warm, it is also a good medicine, can make people with inferiority come out of the forest full of thorns.
From any point of view, praise is a good thing, it can make others happy, but also let us be good at finding the shining points in others.
However, praise may not apply to all places, and if you praise someone in public, the consequences can be terrible.
Imagine what would you think when you were trying on clothes in a clothing store and the clerk next to you was desperately praising another customer for being beautiful?
If the customer being praised does not know you, your heart may not care too much about this matter, but if he is your friend, then negative thoughts are easy to produce, not only that, the closer your relationship with the praised person, the greater your inner resistance, which is the side effect of praise on the bystander.
Prone to comparison psychology
People who work hard in the workplace are bound to encounter a scenario where managers try to motivate the whole team by praising one of the employees.
For example, a person's performance is very outstanding, so I praise him at the meeting and hope that everyone will follow his example.
The same is true in schools, where a student's grades improve so fast that the teacher praises him in front of the class and awards him a certificate.
Such public praise seems to motivate everyone present, but in reality, every bystander in the group feels compared.
The part of the people who are praised is naturally in a good mood, but the group that is denied cannot deal with it calmly.
From a psychological point of view, the difference between the two is like being labeled, and those who are praised are likely to be jealous or even retaliated against by another group.
Jealousy as one of the instinctive emotions of people, its appearance is very common, psychologist Danrs proposed that jealousy can be divided into two situations, one of which is benign jealousy, that is, classmates praise the person who is praised from the heart, and the second is malignant jealousy, which occurs mostly when the person being praised is his good friend.
Blind comparison does not make people jealous, so what kind of scene will maximize people's jealousy?
When the bystander compares himself with the person being praised, he usually does not think that the other party is very powerful, and even does not agree that the other party's ability and talent are higher than his own, he firmly believes that these are the differences in development conditions and opportunities, as long as he has also met, the performance is bound to be better than the other party.
However, in retrospect, jealous people realize that subjective feelings of inequality are simply not supported in objective life, and the more difficult it is for them to prove this, the stronger the sense of jealousy will be.
This is just one of the drawbacks of publicly praising others, and it will also bring endless hidden dangers to those who are praised.
Cultivate narcissists
It is undoubtedly an honor to be praised in public or recognized by an authoritative person, precisely because the person you approve recognizes you, so you think your value is affirmed.
However, those who do not know enough about self-worth tend to regard external voices as the most important thing, and over time, even the internal value system is completely left to the evaluation of others to structure.
From a psychological point of view, people who are publicly praised are likely to become narcissists, because after they have been highly recognized, they will have a great sense of superiority in their hearts, so that they think that they are outstanding and stand out from the crowd.
People who are already arrogant tend to appear to be ostentatious or complacent, while implicit narcissists will give birth to the idea that the whole world owes me, or that I am weak and need to be protected by everyone.
Once the privileges of narcissists are threatened, they erupt with greater hostility and aggressive intent.
Not only that, but exaggerated praise can also make the narcissist's heart very conflicted, on the one hand, they think that they have many shortcomings that cannot be ignored, and on the other hand, they think he is very special.
Like those who desperately blame themselves for their imperfections, privately they may be naïve enough to think that the mediocrity of others is not enough to understand his extraordinary.
Although praise will make a person more confident, but the use of the wrong occasion will bring endless hidden dangers, do not praise a person in public, because in addition to making the praised person a target in the group, but also make those who have not been praised jealous.
Whether you are the person being praised or a bystander, you should know that your self-worth should not be swayed by the evaluation of others, but should be based on a clear understanding of yourself.
- The End -
Author | Tommy
Edit | Rain
The First Psychological Writing Group | A group of young people who like to look up at the stars
参考资料：Bruk, A., Scholl, S. G., & Bless, H. (2018). Beautiful mess effect: Self–other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability. Journal of personality and social psychology, 115(2), 192-205