Who Is the People-Pleaser?

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People-pleasing often feels kind—but can undermine your ability to connect authentically to others.

Suppressing your needs to avoid conflict is linked to resentment and poorer well-being.

A chronic habit of self-silencing can harm your mental health and even physical health over time.

At work, saying yes too often can invite exploitation and ultimately damage your relationships.

Being a “people pleaser” doesn’t sound so bad. The term suggests a willingness to make others happy, being considerate and generous, and being aware of others’ needs. But, as you may already have gathered, the real story is quite a bit more complicated. Decades of research in social psychology suggest that trying too hard to keep other people happy can become a self-defeating pattern — a persistent habit that can sometimes hurt as much as it helps. Although people-pleasing may be intended to protect your relationships, your mental health, and even your identity, it can actually end up undermining them instead.

First and perhaps foremost, people-pleasing may not actually support an authentic sense of self. It may come across as phony or ingratiating, in a way that other people will generally be able to notice. In 2012, psychologist Emily Impett and her colleagues carried out a study of romantic partners that revealed that suppressing emotions in a self-sacrificial way was associated with a diminished sense of emotional well-being — not only for the people-pleaser, but for both partners (Impett et al, 2012). More specifically, these effects were controlled by the giving partner’s sense of authenticity; when they made their people-pleasing efforts in an artificial or inauthentic way, the emotional damage was exacerbated. The study highlighted a fascinating effect: People can generally tell when their romantic partners are being real, or when they are suppressing negative emotions and behaving in a falsely generous way. When this happened, their relationship quality declined........

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