Liking gap
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In social psychology, the liking gap is the disparity between how much a person believes that another person likes them and that other person's actual opinion.[1] Studies have found that most people underestimate how much other people like them and enjoy their company.[1][2][3]
The 2018 Psychological Science study which coined the term "liking gap" explored people's interactions in various scenarios: strangers meeting for the first time in a laboratory setting, members of the general public getting to know each other during a personal development workshop, and first-year college students living with a dormmate for one academic year.[1] In all three scenarios, participants consistently self-assessed as less liked by the other person than they actually were.[1] The gap was shown to be present in short, medium, and long conversations among strangers.[1] In the laboratory setting, participants reporting both high and average shyness liked their discussion partner significantly more than they assessed their partner to like them.[1] In students, the liking gap persisted nearly the entire duration of the study before suddenly closing at the end – possibly indicating that dormmates had directly discussed interpersonal compatibility to decide whether they should share a dorm the next year.[1] The study found that participants gave each other social signals indicating liking but that these signals were neglected.[1]
There is evidence that suggests the liking gap begins to develop from the age of 5, as this is around the time when children begin to become more aware of and concerned with the ways that they are evaluated by others.[3]
Research suggests that people usually have favorable views about themselves and others.[4][5] However, there is evidence that people tend to exhibit self-criticism when thinking about their own interactions with others.[1][6]
See also
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Boothby, Erica J.; Cooney, Gus; Sandstrom, Gillian M.; Clark, Margaret S. (2018-11-01). "The Liking Gap in Conversations: Do People Like Us More Than We Think?" (PDF). Psychological Science. 29 (11): 1742–1756. doi:10.1177/0956797618783714. ISSN 0956-7976. PMID 30183512. S2CID 52165115.
- ↑ "Bridging the 'liking-gap,' researchers discuss awkwardness of conversations". Science Daily.
- 1 2 Wolf, Wouter; Nafe, Amanda; Tomasello, Michael (2021-04-29). "The Development of the Liking Gap: Children Older Than 5 Years Think That Partners Evaluate Them Less Positively Than They Evaluate Their Partners". Psychological Science. 32 (5): 789–798. doi:10.1177/0956797620980754. ISSN 0956-7976. PMID 33914647. S2CID 233462197.
- ↑ Alicke, Mark (1985). "Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 49 (6): 1621–1630. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.49.6.1621.
- ↑ Kruger, Justin; David, Dunning (1999). "Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 77 (6): 1121–1134. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121. PMID 10626367.
- ↑ Deri, Sebastian; Davidai, Shai; Gilovich, Thomas (2017). "Home alone: Why people believe others' social lives are richer than their own". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 113 (6): 858–877. doi:10.1037/pspa0000105. PMID 29189037. S2CID 25964432.