80 People Who Asked The Internet To “Toast” Them And Got The Nicest Comments Ever
A study by researchers at technology company Intel and Duke University in the US shows that verbal praise is even more effective at increasing productivity than cash bonuses.
“People generally don’t realize that something so small could have such a big impact,” explains Vanessa Bohns, a professor of social psychology at Cornell University and author of You Have More Influence Than You Think.
Working with Dr. Boothby at the University of Pennsylvania, she asked participants to go to an assigned location on campus and deliver a small compliment to a random stranger. (To reduce potential misunderstandings about their motives, the participants were asked to approach someone of the same gender.)
To check their preconceptions, the participants first had to estimate how pleased, flattered, or awkward the receiver would feel following the praise. After they delivered the comment, they then gave the recipient a sealed envelope containing a short survey questioning how the stranger actually felt about the exchange.
The researchers found that the participants significantly under-estimated how happy the other person would be to hear the praise, and significantly over-estimated how cringeworthy they would find the encounter. “They felt like this interaction was going to go super awkwardly, and that they would be kind of clumsy in their delivery,” explains Bohns. But the real exchange was way more pleasant.
