When we get a compliment, a lot happens in our heads. Neuroscientist Christoph Korn explains what this has to do with self-image, motivation and sex.
BARBARA: Mr. Korn, among other things you examined how positive feedback affects the recipient. How did you do that?
Christoph Korn: For the study, we brought people together who didn’t know each other before. You had to rate yourself and the other participants on a scale from 1 to 10 – that is, how polite, aggressive, cordial I am and the others are. Then we showed everyone what the participants said about them and followed the reactions in their brains on the MRI.
What was going on in the brains?
If people receive a compliment, i.e. positive feedback, the same reward centers are active that are also associated with money, good food or erotic images. The more positively a character trait was assessed, the greater the activity in these regions.
Do compliments work like sex?
It’s not that simple, because we can of course distinguish whether we are receiving a compliment or whether we are having sex.
What else did you find out?
If the feedback is more positive than expected, most people change their minds about themselves. It is different if the feedback is more negative than expected.
We are more open to compliments than to criticism.
Yes, because if a certain behavior is well received, we continue to pursue it. We tend to ward off criticism. The positive feedback is perceived more strongly, this is called an “optimistic tendency”.
Is this overconfidence a good thing?
Those who overestimate themselves in a positive sense may work harder, train more intensively, face new people and challenging situations. All of this can have positive consequences that fuel initial optimism. The result is a self-reinforcing positive cycle. Various theories assume that this has an evolutionary advantage.
So the bottom line is that praise helps me more than criticism?
At least often, praise seems to be more widely accepted. But that doesn’t mean that one should stop criticizing. And of course it also depends on what the other expects. For example, if I think this interview was great, I’ve never expressed myself so ingeniously, and you say, yes, it was okay, then I find your supposed compliment downright negative. So it’s always about the relationship.
So a good compliment is …
… positive and unexpected. There is always a comparison: what do I expect and what do I get. If I receive praise from a colleague every day, at some point it will become normal. But if there is no praise, I notice the discrepancy between my expectations and the feedback. The brain processes many kinds of discrepancies all the time.
When else?
Even when we look at a picture that is evenly painted with one color, we pay attention to the edges, because something suddenly happens there. Here is the picture and there is the wall.
The brain perceives contrasts.
Something similar happens with the difference between expectations and reality, see our study described above.
Do we actually recognize a compliment with ulterior motives?
Possible, because whoever receives a compliment automatically wants to understand why they received it. Compliments activate the brain regions that are responsible for so-called mentalizing – that is, to think about what is going on in the head of the other person, what goal the other person is pursuing.
Sometimes it works anyway: If you compliment the ice cream seller before ordering, there is ten percent more ice cream, the University of Innsbruck has found out.
Interesting study result! In general, I would say that we don’t always notice when a person is complimenting someone for selfish reasons.
Does praise make me a better person?
One can learn from praise. Compliments are a signal for socially desirable behavior. Of course, it makes a big difference what I’m praised for. For example, I can’t change the color of my eyes.
What’s stopping us from praising more?
It is exhausting. For an effective, i.e. surprising, compliment, you have to think about it. Let’s take this interview again. If I have to say something original about it, it is not enough: “You were very nice and asked interesting questions.”
Rather?
They gave me new ideas about what else could be researched in this area. That is nice of you. You are welcome.
CHRISTOPH KORN, Junior Professor for Social Neuroscience at Heidelberg University Hospital.