A Compliment That Really Means Something

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about how to give and take criticism well. As important as that is for getting along with others, one skill does supersede it: the ability to give compliments. The quality of our relationships, in fact, depends on the ratio of praise to criticism that is exchanged. The people we deal with, at work and at home, will not only flourish if we provide a good proportion of positive feedback along with occasional correctives but are also more likely to perform well, succeed—and like us.

Researchers have found, for example, that on the highest-performing corporate teams, members gave 5.6 compliments for every criticism of their peers. On the lowest-performing teams, that ratio was upside down, with 2.8 criticisms per compliment. This effect seems to apply not just in a business environment but in personal partnerships. According to the Gottman Institute, a project by two academic psychologists to improve relationships, happy couples’ “magic ratio” of positive to negative interactions (a negative interaction being one involving critical, dismissive, or defensive behavior) is 5 to 1.

However, just as giving constructive criticism is no straightforward matter and requires skills and knowledge, so it is with compliments. Done well, words of praise can be a soothing balm of Gilead for human relations at home and at work. But done poorly, compliments can be ineffective, even destructive. What follows is a research-based guide to giving compliments right.

[Arthur C. Brooks: How to take—and give—criticism well]

Most compliments in our culture follow a very predictable pattern. According to the research of J. César Félix-Brasdefer, a professor of Spanish and linguistics at Indiana University, they are generally directed toward another person’s appearance, performance, or possessions. By his reckoning, about two-thirds of compliments in the United States are made using just five adjectives: nice, good, beautiful, pretty, and great. In addition, about 80 percent of compliments follow three templates. So if I liked a book you wrote and wanted to say something positive about it, my compliment would probably follow one of these basic patterns: “Your book is great,” “I love your book,” or “That is a terrific book.”

What we choose to compliment depends on certain demographic patterns. For example, in 2011 a scholar showed that women in unstructured settings both give and receive far more compliments than men—at a higher rate of nearly three to one. About three-quarters of women’s compliments to other women in an unstructured, informal setting (such as a party) involved appearance; in a goal-oriented, formal setting (such as work), 68 percent of praise statements were about performance. Men, by contrast, overwhelmingly complimented one another not on appearance but on performance in all settings.

Whether the compliment is effective in uplifting the other person depends on whether it is believable, appropriate, and unqualified. To begin with, a good compliment must not clash with its recipient’s self-conception. If you tell me my hair looks good, I will dismiss it and suspect your motives, because I am bald. More generally, people with low self-esteem don’t usually receive compliments well. As researchers have shown, in people with high self-esteem, a compliment stimulates parts of the brain responsible for self-referential thinking. This occurs significantly less for people who have low self-esteem, probably because the compliment does not ring true with their negative view of themselves, and so they discount it. Other reasons some people resist compliments include simple modesty and a desire not to appear superior.

Even if a compliment agrees with one’s self-conception, scholars writing in 2022 in Current Psychology concluded, it must meet three criteria to be accepted by its object. The praise must come from a person with credibility to give it, it must be sincere and unscripted, and it must occur in the appropriate context.

Consider, for example, how you’d respond to a fulsome compliment from a salesperson you’d never met about how smart and discriminating you are when you’re leaning toward a particular purchase. You’d probably find that kind of compliment off-putting, because the person doesn’t know you well enough to judge your true qualities and is simply buttering you up to make a sale. The compliment fails on all three counts: the praiser lacks credibility, their sincerity is suspect, and your willingness to spend money in a store is not a meaningful context for grading your intelligence.

Some compliments are not just ineffective; they actually cause harm. My Harvard colleagues Alison Wood Brooks and Michael Norton, with co-authors Ovul Sezer and Emily Prinsloo, have conducted research into backhanded praise, which implicitly puts someone down by comparing their good quality with a negative standard. An example of a destructive compliment would be “You look pretty good for a bald guy”—not that I’m insecure or anything—because this sets such a low ceiling on the praise.

Other ways to give negative praise include comparisons with past failure (“This draft is certainly better than the last one”), with poor expectations (“Your work is better than I expected”), and with a derogatory stereotype (“This work isn’t bad for a Yale grad”). In their experiments, the authors found that the complimenters thought these backhanded comparisons were positive, but both recipients and third-party observers disagreed.

[Read: Why men can’t take compliments]

Given all of this research, it might sound as though giving a compliment that can be accepted and beneficial is difficult and fraught. In truth, praising well is really quite simple if you follow three simple rules.

1. Be honest.
Remember that compliments generally get rejected when they are not credible or sincere; in other words, when they are perceived as dishonest. This is not to say that you are a dishonest person—just that you might be motivated to dole out praise strategically or perhaps because you have a habit of flattering people. Either way, your compliments are unlikely to be believed by a well-adjusted person, and that will hurt your believability overall. Before delivering a compliment, ask yourself: Do I truly believe what I am going to say to this person? If not, refrain. If so, proceed to the second rule.

2. Make your compliment a pure gift.
A common reason to compliment someone is to induce them to reciprocate in some way. Psychologists have shown that it works: When people participating in an experiment were complimented by a stranger and then asked for a favor, they were more likely to comply than when not complimented, because, the researchers posited, of the human urge for reciprocity. People recognize what is going on, however, because the same experiment showed that the compliment did not increase any liking for the stranger or induce a positive mood in the recipient. So, for a compliment to be honest, make it with nothing asked or expected in return. (And when you are praised by a stranger and then asked for a favor, don’t reward this disingenuousness.)

3. Avoid qualification.
After he turned a certain age, an older friend told me that he tended to get two kinds of compliments: either “You’re looking well for your age” or “You look a lot better than [some mutual acquaintance who was also elderly].” He hated both. The first meant he looked old; the second put him above someone else. This encapsulates well what the research confirms: Comparing a person with someone else or with a standard benchmark is perilous at best and destructive at worst. A favorable comparison will make someone who is humble feel uncomfortable. And if the comparison appears unfavorable, the compliment will backfire.

[Arthur C. Brooks: Why it’s nice to know you]

One last idea for giving good compliments: Break the conventional patterns from time to time, moving beyond other people’s appearance and performance. One quality people rarely compliment—but should—is what the psychologist Rhett Diessner calls “moral beauty,” a characteristic that is reflected in acts of charity, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, courage, or self-sacrifice. With his co-author, Rico Pohling, Diessner finds that witnessing such beauty elicits moral elevation, which is experienced as “pleasant feelings of warmth in the chest, feeling uplifted, moved,” which in turns leads to being more “optimistic about humanity.”

Moral beauty is deeply praiseworthy, yet we easily let it pass unremarked. In a complicated and conflict-filled world, saying “Nice tie!” or “Good job!” is fine, I suppose. But making a habit of recognizing and complimenting true acts of love and kindness can help us all get more of the uplift we need.