The psychologist answers: HOW TO make yourself pleasant? What does this liking depend on?

OHMYGOSSIP – The reader asks: “I would like to please others. Sometimes I understand that I’m being pushed away. How to make myself pleasant? What does it depend on? ”

The psychologist responds:
We like some people at first sight, others after getting to know them better. Some people even attract us, but others deter us. Why do we react to people differently?

First and foremost, you can’t dismiss the notion of physical attraction. We prefer to interact with people who seem physically attractive to us. A charming person is automatically considered friendlier, more balanced, warmer and kinder. When we start getting to know someone, we prefer people with similar attitudes. We consider people whose attitudes differ significantly from ours even less intelligent. Of particular interest is the fact that we like a partner who has changed his or her attitudes because of us, rather than the person who has had the same opinion from the beginning. This knowledge has also been used to shape the relationship between the heroes of many books and films. Romantic relationships arise rather between those who were originally in conflict but then got to know each other, than between those who were neutral and friendly from the beginning. Of course, this does not mean that real life should be transformed into a soap opera overflowing with drama.

Much has also been said about the attraction between opposites. According to some theories, some people choose partners who balance their needs. For example, the dominant chooses the subordinate, and so on. In fact, it is a simplified model and I would not continue with that.

The important thing is that we are going to like people with whom we have a lot of contact. This is how relationships are formed with co-workers, dormitory residents, course mates, etc. The prerequisite, of course, is initial sympathy. Communication imposed by an unpleasant person can makes us withdraw completely. (So a tip for people already living together whose relationship is starting to cool down: just be more together in different ways and in different situations.)

And, we like people who like us. Here, too, the principle of cost-benefit becomes apparent: if another person is negative at first but becomes positive (due to us), then we like that person more than the person who was completely positive from the beginning. We like to know that the other has changed because of us, so we have “earned” benefit.

This is not the end of interesting human behavior. One of the factors behind liking is the so-called perceived error. We like when others make mistakes from time to time and show their “human” side. It irritates especially successful people to create of themselves an absolutely infallible image of a hero. We like people who can make us feel like they are one of us.

Humans are selfish. We organize our relationships to maximize “benefit” and minimize “losses” in human relationships. At the same time, the so-called currency is social approval. We attach value to those who increase our confidence, especially in an area where we feel inadequate. At the beginning of a relationship, we try and condition the granting and receipt of different types of benefits, but by committing ourselves to the relationship, we already set norms and mutual expectations in our minds. If, for some reason, these norms are violated or expectations are deceived, we feel that the costs of being in a relationship outweigh the benefits, and we may withdraw from the relationship. At the same time, many people remain in what can be seen as an unbalanced relationship, so researchers still have a number of theories to come up with.

Photo: Pexels
Source: Ohmygossip.ee

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