New perspectives on the praise literature: towards a conceptual model of compliment
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New perspectives on the praise literature: towards a conceptual model of compliment Jessica S. Morton 1
&
Moïra Mikolajczak 1
&
Olivier Luminet 1,2
Accepted: 29 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Compliments are verbal acts that take place on daily basis between at least two individuals (the complimenter and the complimentee). The frequency and effects of compliments contrast with the scarcity of research devoted to this issue. So far, compliments have mainly been studied through the lens of educational psychology, with the aim of examining their effects on students’ learning and performance. These studies concluded that compliments are relatively ineffective educational tools. For their part, the linguists were interested in the wording of compliments and the cross-cultural issues. Our literature review aims to enlarge the focus of research in this domain by considering the compliment from other perspectives, such as social psychology, personality, emotions, social cognition and communication. This article aims to provide a theoretical framework that (1) integrates the disparate elements of the literature on compliments, (2) accounts for the antecedents and consequences of the compliment, as well as the moderating effect of contextual and personal variables (in the complimenter and the complementee), (3) explains why compliments do not always have the desired effect and why well-intended compliments can have negative consequences on the receiver, and (4) stimulates future research by identifying gaps in the literature and suggesting a number of hypotheses. Keywords Compliment . Praise . Model, social interaction . Personality . Positive psychology
Introduction Everybody receives and makes compliments, these little comments that highlight the qualities of the receiver. Some compliments are normative in nature and occur on life’s major occasions, such as the birth of a child or the acquisition of a new house. Normative compliments are the equivalent of congratulations. While compliments received on these occasions serve to reassure about life choices, they also constitute implicit evaluations of the ability to act in accordance with the standards of the in-group. Other compliments are more spontaneous, without any normative obligation. This is the case when a person spontaneously decides to compliment friends on the beautiful outfit they are wearing. Whether the
* Jessica S. Morton [email protected] 1
Faculté des Sciences Psychologiques et de l’Education, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
2
National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), Brussels, Belgium
compliment is normative or spontaneous, it constitutes a powerful way to express the extent to which the individual values another person. The compliment also offers the opportunity to increase the closeness of a relationship, reactivate shared values and/or reinforce desired behaviors. Compliments are by essence a social act and therefore fall within the scope of social psychology. Am
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