Who Is the People-Pleaser?

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People-pleasing in adulthood is correlated with relational trauma in childhood.

Prioritizing love from others over self-love is an outdated survival response.

Authenticity can foster healthy interpersonal relationships that don't depend on people-pleasing.

If you’ve ever caught yourself agreeing with someone to “keep the peace”, one of two things is likely happening: 1) you cannot be bothered to challenge this person since you don’t have a relationship with them, or, 2) you care so deeply about this individual liking you that you’re willing to sacrifice your authentic beliefs to validate them. The former is indifference and the latter is a fawn response; also known as people-pleasing.

Why do we people-please? The short answer is that, at some point in time, maintaining others’ peace was more important than our own.

Consider a child raised in a high-conflict household; if someone ever disagreed with mom or dad, there would be severe consequences. What might that child have learned to survive in their environment? Agree with everyone to avoid being rejected. Let’s say the child sees how this mantra tends to keep the peace with mom and dad. As a bonus, they also gain a sense of control over their environment, which feels less scary than the truth; they ultimately cannot control mom or dad’s behaviour.

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