In the demanding world of office life, we all need a little self-promotion now and then. However, it is also very important not to appear cheesy when announcing our successes. There is a difficult balance here. A new study found the secret to striking this balance: While shedding light on your own success, also highlight the achievements of your colleagues.
Researchers say this ‘double praise’ tactic is an excellent way to ensure we’re perceived as competent while exuding ‘warmth’: “We demonstrate that you can project both warmth and competence by simultaneously encouraging others (describing their accomplishments and qualities) and describing your own accomplishments and qualities.”
Teams from Vanderbilt University, George Mason University, and the University of Pennsylvania distinguish dual praise from flattery. Because double praise requires a person to appreciate other colleagues even when no one is around. For example, it will be very beneficial for you to appreciate a colleague even in a meeting where he/she is not present.
‘The purpose of double praise is…
One of the lead authors of the study, Dr. working at Vanderbilt University. “The goal of double praise is not to directly improve relationships with the person receiving the compliment, but rather to demonstrate your own warmth (sincerity) and competence by showing a third party that you care about the other person,” says Eric VanEpps.
However, Dr. VanEpps also underlines that most people do not use this in situations such as job interviews. In a pilot study, while surveying hiring managers; It was found that 69.1 percent of the respondents praised only themselves, while only 12.6 percent resorted to double praise. Dr. “People are either not thinking about speaking positively about others right now, or they’re worried they’ll look worse in comparison,” VanEpps says.
“However, we have observed time and time again that, in addition to claiming praise for your own talents and achievements, it is especially good to compliment your colleagues – this is the ‘double’ part of double praise.”
How was the research done? Here is an example…
For the study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers conducted seven experiments involving 1,488 participants. So, how were the studies that resulted in the article carried out? Let’s go through an example:
In one experiment, 200 hiring managers were asked to evaluate two colleagues who had completed a joint project and were evaluating them. The employee who applied double praise used the following expressions: “This project was successful thanks to our teamwork. I took care of all financial analysis, technical processes and background design. Alex really impressed me with the way he handled our customer communications. “We both took responsibility for what we do best and it led to a great outcome.”
The employee who preferred to praise himself said: “This project was successful due to effective technical details. My skills were a perfect fit for this project, so I took care of all the financial analysis, technical processes and background design. “I took responsibility for what I do best, and it led to a great outcome.”
Managers rated the two candidates about the same on competence, but the candidate who used double praise scored significantly higher on friendliness, with an average score of 5.65 on a seven-point scale, compared to 4.14 points received by the candidate who preferred self-praise. The situation was the same with competence. While hiring managers gave an average of 5.83 points to the candidate who applied double praise, the employee who praised himself could get 4.67 points.
Research team; They put forward a term they call the “self-praise dilemma”, arguing that in previous studies, people behaved too much in promoting themselves and that this gave a successful impression to some extent, but they discovered that these behaviors also harmed people’s opinions about them. The result reveals that the so-called “double praise” approach solves this dilemma.
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