Are you good at receiving compliments?

When someone praises you, how do you react? Do you share a simple thank you and let it soak in? Or are you allergic to compliments and quickly brush them off?

 

On the flip side, when the moment presents, how quick are you to deliver a compliment?

 

“Genuine compliments,” says Dr. Ronnie Siddique of Embolden Psychology, “actually create a surge of dopamine and serotonin for both the giver and the receiver, making them a pleasurable event.”

 

Powerful though they may be, compliments often take a back seat to criticism. In a world littered with suggestion boxes – think restaurants, schools, and offices – one has to wonder: where are the compliment boxes? Shouldn’t they sit alongside one another?

 

WHY WE DEFLECT COMPLIMENTS

Each of us knows from experience that a compliment received can quickly boost our mood, our ego, our confidence. Nonetheless, too often, we fail to embrace.

 

Explains Lindsay Goodwin of Psychology Today: “Social conditioning often teaches us to deflect praise, making compliments feel unnatural or undeserved.”

 

Goodwin goes on: “When we let compliments sink in, we’re not just acknowledging our own value – we’re also honoring the person who offered them. In doing so, we create space for deeper connection, greater joy, and more confidence – not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us.”

 

In place of rejecting, minimizing, or deflecting, Chris Thomson of The Conscious Professional urges us to “own it. It was a gift given to you, so don’t besmirch it as soon as you receive it. A simple ‘thank you’ is all it takes!”

 

COMPLIMENTS ARE A SOCIAL LUBRICANT

How skilled are you at offering kind words?

 

Learning how to compliment, says Hara Estroff Marano, also of Psychology Today, “is not only a powerful social skill, it is one of the most fundamental. You don’t need to be an expert to do it well. You just need to be genuine.”

 

With compliments, she says, “Returns are great and immediate. They escalate the atmosphere of positivity and become social lubricants.”

 

Marano refers to compliments as little gifts of love and says that by “focusing on and noticing the good qualities in the world around us, (it) gives our moods a boost all by itself.”

 

PEOPLE WANT TO HEAR THE DETAILS

Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics encourages us to nourish compliments with detail. “When you’re praising someone,” he says, “the detail is essential.” 

 

His quick example: “Take, for instance, a jam that someone gave me a few days ago. I wrote to him saying, ‘I love the chili jam. The color is so arresting.’ I had this conversation on chat, and by the time I finished the sentence, he was already telling me a story.”

 

D’Souza takes no quarrel with “a quick ‘like’ to acknowledge a person’s work.” And he maintains that “a ‘wow’ or ‘that was cool’ all suggests that you appreciate what you’re experiencing. However, the details are what people want to hear. They want to relive what they’ve gone through to design their living room, bake a cake, but even the details on a single photo matter.”

 

COMPLIMENT BRAINS OVER BEAUTY

Siddique speaks to the object of our compliments, urging us to focus on personality versus appearance. She explains: “There is an abundance of scientific evidence that further emphasizes the importance of non-physical compliments.”

 

Siddique cites a series of surveys on relationship satisfaction and “found that women in particular actually formed negative associations with compliments that valued only their appearance,” and not their non-physical qualities.

 

Wanna turn your day around? Share a compliment – and let the ones you receive sink in.