A creative study reveals who gets applauded, and why.
Posted Nov 07, 2015
When people work hard or achieve results that benefit others, it’s
natural to want at least a little appreciation. You may feel that you do
more than your share of effort around the house, but your partner or
family hardly seem to notice. At work, you may believe that the long
hours you put in go above and beyond the call of duty and deserve
positive feedback from your boss or coworkers.
When appreciation doesn’t come to you, it’s natural to feel resentful. It’s even more natural to resent it when someone else gets credit for your efforts, or just gets more attention in general for accomplishing the same amount as you.
Feeling unappreciated can easily translate into a series of counterproductive behaviors: You can get snarky and start making disparaging remarks about others or become so angry that you try to sabotage the efforts of others. At the extreme, you may leave or quit. While these are all natural reactions, they’re not particularly useful in getting you the attention you've rightfully earned.
It’s important to clarify here that we’re not looking at narcissistic entitlement, but at legitimate situations in which you’ve done something worthwhile that no one seems to notice. Either you’ve been so good at what you do so that people take you for granted; you’re ignored by people who are themselves are narcissistically entitled (and therefore want to take credit for what you’ve done); or you aren’t doing enough of a PR job getting others to recognize you.
The psychological literature isn’t especially helpful in providing solutions to the problem of how you position yourself to get the credit you’ve earned. One study on applause, however, provides some intriguing leads. University of Vienna anthropologist Markus Koppensteiner and colleagues (2014) examined the question of what leads people to applaud a politician giving a public speech.
Applause is a form of recognition we use primarily to show appreciation for a speaker, performer, or honoree. Some performances call for “applause-plus” in the form of a standing ovation, and others for “golf claps,” or a near-silent pressing of the hands together. In either case, you’ve increased the target’s sense of worth. Koppensteiner and his team used applause as a sign of an audience’s reactions to the subtle facial and body language cues given off by politicians to see which lead people to applaud.
Taking so-called “thin slices” (short segments) of behavior, the Austrian team randomly selected 60 speeches to the German parliament from 30 male and 30 female legislators. The researchers wanted to extract the cues that led to applause or no applause by focusing only on the speaker’s body movements. A computer program generated stick-figure movies of the politicians—therefore, the researchers were able to eliminate all other cues such as appearance, age, gender, or other possible influences on applause.
Participants didn’t actually applaud after watching the short video segments. (Who could applaud at a stick figure?) Instead, they rated the animations on the Five Factor personality traits of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, as well as on overall trustworthiness, dominance, and competence. The researchers then correlated the personality ratings with the outcome of the speech in Parliament and whether the legislator received applause or boos.
Stop a minute and ask yourself who you tend to applaud for: Is it someone “nice," i.e., agreeable and outgoing? Or do you appreciate a speaker who seems trustworthy and competent? Do you become suspicious when a domineering type clamors for your attention? Do you have to like people in order to applaud their efforts?
The findings from this creative study show that the people we applaud for aren’t necessarily the people we like. The German parliament speakers who received applause from their colleagues were the ones whose body movements showed that they were dominant, extroverted (outgoing) and—surprisingly—low on agreeableness (in other words, not that nice). In fact, Koppensteiner and his coauthors suggest that the downright unfriendly and aggressive people are more likely to draw outward shows of support.
Left unanswered is the question of whether applause triggers these displays of dominance and aggressiveness or vice versa. It’s possible that, encouraged by applause, such politicians became more likely to assert their presence in the room. Also, these were nonverbal displays, and we don’t know how much what the politicians actually said influenced audience reactions.
Still, the moral of the story is that a communicating a strong presence through your body movements is what spurs people to put their hands together for you. If you’re not a politician or performer, how can you translate this finding into practical advice? You’ve probably been taught that the way to get others to like, and hence appreciate, you is by appearing to be nice. You’ve probably also learned that people will be more likely to recognize your efforts when you don’t seem to be asking for it.
It’s time to turn that advice on its head.
In real life, you obviously can’t go around waving your arms and pounding your fist to get other people to appreciate you. If you’re feeling underappreciated, though, perhaps it’s time to think about the way that you present yourself to those around you. Getting people to pay attention to you may be a matter of showing your leadership qualities. Perhaps no one knows what your worthwhile efforts have been because these efforts take place behind the scenes. If your feelings of resentment then lead you to retreat even further, you’ll almost definitely not get the attention your work deserves next time, either.
Doing something well because you enjoy doing it may provide all the satisfaction you need. However, getting the recognition you've earned may provide you with that extra boost we all need once in a while to maximize our feelings of fulfillment.
When appreciation doesn’t come to you, it’s natural to feel resentful. It’s even more natural to resent it when someone else gets credit for your efforts, or just gets more attention in general for accomplishing the same amount as you.
Feeling unappreciated can easily translate into a series of counterproductive behaviors: You can get snarky and start making disparaging remarks about others or become so angry that you try to sabotage the efforts of others. At the extreme, you may leave or quit. While these are all natural reactions, they’re not particularly useful in getting you the attention you've rightfully earned.
It’s important to clarify here that we’re not looking at narcissistic entitlement, but at legitimate situations in which you’ve done something worthwhile that no one seems to notice. Either you’ve been so good at what you do so that people take you for granted; you’re ignored by people who are themselves are narcissistically entitled (and therefore want to take credit for what you’ve done); or you aren’t doing enough of a PR job getting others to recognize you.
The psychological literature isn’t especially helpful in providing solutions to the problem of how you position yourself to get the credit you’ve earned. One study on applause, however, provides some intriguing leads. University of Vienna anthropologist Markus Koppensteiner and colleagues (2014) examined the question of what leads people to applaud a politician giving a public speech.
Applause is a form of recognition we use primarily to show appreciation for a speaker, performer, or honoree. Some performances call for “applause-plus” in the form of a standing ovation, and others for “golf claps,” or a near-silent pressing of the hands together. In either case, you’ve increased the target’s sense of worth. Koppensteiner and his team used applause as a sign of an audience’s reactions to the subtle facial and body language cues given off by politicians to see which lead people to applaud.
Taking so-called “thin slices” (short segments) of behavior, the Austrian team randomly selected 60 speeches to the German parliament from 30 male and 30 female legislators. The researchers wanted to extract the cues that led to applause or no applause by focusing only on the speaker’s body movements. A computer program generated stick-figure movies of the politicians—therefore, the researchers were able to eliminate all other cues such as appearance, age, gender, or other possible influences on applause.
Participants didn’t actually applaud after watching the short video segments. (Who could applaud at a stick figure?) Instead, they rated the animations on the Five Factor personality traits of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, as well as on overall trustworthiness, dominance, and competence. The researchers then correlated the personality ratings with the outcome of the speech in Parliament and whether the legislator received applause or boos.
Stop a minute and ask yourself who you tend to applaud for: Is it someone “nice," i.e., agreeable and outgoing? Or do you appreciate a speaker who seems trustworthy and competent? Do you become suspicious when a domineering type clamors for your attention? Do you have to like people in order to applaud their efforts?
The findings from this creative study show that the people we applaud for aren’t necessarily the people we like. The German parliament speakers who received applause from their colleagues were the ones whose body movements showed that they were dominant, extroverted (outgoing) and—surprisingly—low on agreeableness (in other words, not that nice). In fact, Koppensteiner and his coauthors suggest that the downright unfriendly and aggressive people are more likely to draw outward shows of support.
Left unanswered is the question of whether applause triggers these displays of dominance and aggressiveness or vice versa. It’s possible that, encouraged by applause, such politicians became more likely to assert their presence in the room. Also, these were nonverbal displays, and we don’t know how much what the politicians actually said influenced audience reactions.
Still, the moral of the story is that a communicating a strong presence through your body movements is what spurs people to put their hands together for you. If you’re not a politician or performer, how can you translate this finding into practical advice? You’ve probably been taught that the way to get others to like, and hence appreciate, you is by appearing to be nice. You’ve probably also learned that people will be more likely to recognize your efforts when you don’t seem to be asking for it.
It’s time to turn that advice on its head.
In real life, you obviously can’t go around waving your arms and pounding your fist to get other people to appreciate you. If you’re feeling underappreciated, though, perhaps it’s time to think about the way that you present yourself to those around you. Getting people to pay attention to you may be a matter of showing your leadership qualities. Perhaps no one knows what your worthwhile efforts have been because these efforts take place behind the scenes. If your feelings of resentment then lead you to retreat even further, you’ll almost definitely not get the attention your work deserves next time, either.
Doing something well because you enjoy doing it may provide all the satisfaction you need. However, getting the recognition you've earned may provide you with that extra boost we all need once in a while to maximize our feelings of fulfillment.
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