People Pleasing Is Just Controlling Other People

Call it compassionate or bighearted all you want--- it’s more to please the self than it is others

People pleasing is an attempt to control someone’s behavior, particularly their opinion of you. It is not as virtuous or even as kind as it’s often depicted as; people pleasers often portray themselves as “big-hearted”, “overly-compassionate”, and even “overthinking”. Interestingly, acquaintances of people-pleasers largely seem to believe they’re victims of a social tragedy, as if they’re struck with more benevolence than they’re sure what to do with. With this said, it may not come as particularly surprising that a people pleaser’s primary motivation is the contentment of others, often times at the detriment of their own. What’s conveniently omitted in the “people pleasing” discussion, though, is how the thirst for people pleasing is satisfied: to the person hellbent on accommodating another person’s assumed desires, it requires a fair degree of controlling or even manipulative behavior.

A silly, pop-psychology term referred to as “Good Girl Syndrome” perfectly encapsulates this self-indulgence parading as bigheartedness. Good Girl Syndrome occurs when women internalize cultural or mainstream messages about how they “should” behave and, in turn, shift their behavior to mimic the desires of other people. In other words, it’s the people-pleasing disease that apparently only affects women. While people-pleasing is definitely a term almost entirely adopted by female populations, at its core, it’s something we all experience in varying degrees. With this in mind, it’s important we refrain from essentializing people-pleasing as if it’s an emblem of selflessness or even virtue; fragments of the behavior itself can be truly humanitarian, but its purpose is not that of nobility. In all honesty, much of a strong desire to appease other people has nothing to do with actually pleasing them than it does micromanaging their responses. It’s our own sense of satisfaction, and successful evasion of discomfort, that we aim to appease.

Perhaps I should have prefaced the above statement by reminding readers that all human beings manipulate, attempt to control, and coyly maneuver their way through social interactions. We innately gain a sense of stability when we quell our desires if it means avoiding conflict, as conflict could have easily led to bloodshed before we allegedly became more civilized and fought with our thumbs instead of our crossbows. It’s human nature, and this inborn duplicity usually occurs outside of our direct awareness. This said, I certainly am not making the argument that people pleasers are nurturing a massive chip on their shoulder only fixable through deceiving others. I also whole-heartedly believe that the majority are good people who have learned a specific set of behaviors that many find insufferably annoying. Where the literature falls short in disseminating these behaviors is understanding them as symptoms of a larger issue versus describing them as notable for their philanthropy.  

In the quote below, Brene Brown explains, “When we’re busy pleasing, perfecting, and performing, we end up saying yes a lot when we mean no.” Brown’s words are held as sacred to most millennial women for a reason; they carry a saccharine undertone that effectively speaks to the negative effects on the people-pleaser, all while offering gentle affirmation for one’s insecure behavior. Regarding this quote specifically, I see kernels of legitimacy sprinkled with misleading fluff that’s become so widely palatable.

While saying “no” more often is of use, specifically if we’re someone who chronically avoids confrontation, it isn’t as important as learning to tolerate conversational distress in the first place. The argument can be made that there is a performative nature behind committing to things we desperately wanted to reject; taking on more responsibility in the workplace, for example, is typically a characteristic employers find attractive. The other and perhaps greater impetus for changing our behavior is that of avoiding confrontation or any form of negativity. The negativity we fear in rejecting another person’s question or proposal must be examined as a reason for our people-pleasing, not a symptom of it; this is quite different from emphasizing the mere act of barking vetoes in and of itself. Without understanding what it is we’re avoiding, handing out “no is a full sentence” laptop stickers will likely still leave the people-pleasing individual in a state of codependence, desperately wondering how they can secure another’s approval.

Believing that people pleasers and Good Samaritans are all blessed with a tragic desire to “help” everyone is what I’d consider a cognitive distortion, or a faulty belief. This belief then tends to guide us into Brene-like narratives, those storylines depicting us as overly-compassionate, over-performers who just want the best for all parties, and oh how exhausted we must be constantly tending to the needs of others. There is minimal mention of two critical components: 1) the people-pleasing person chooses to tend to needs that aren’t their own and 2) they’re likely doing so to avoid tending to their own needs because their needs are complex and ingrained. It should come as minimal surprise that couples seeking couples counseling often do so in an attempt to change their spouse versus admit that their own behavior equally contributes to a fissure in a relationship.  

What pop psychology says may very well be true: we may be people who undermine our own needs in pursuit of accommodating others, which depletes our emotional reserves and occasionally gains us social recognition. Again, though… why? It probably isn’t because these individuals have a big heart or because they’re selfless to a fault. It's more likely that they’re submissive, externalize their problems to the hands of others, and feel largely incapable of managing themselves and their emotions without another person’s corroboration. I do understand why these aspects of people-pleasing aren’t shared more readily and more widely: they frame the individual as being responsible for their own sadness and loneliness. This is a painful experience, one most of us would gladly dismiss in light of pop-psychology monologues which gently caution us to “feel our feelings” and “give ourselves grace”. I prefer a more succinct narrative from neighborhood pal Dr. Phil: “Well, I’m not sure what pop psychology is, but I don’t like it.”

In making breakfast with a client recently, who we’ll call Mitch, I had informed him I’d be bringing my newest milk frother and favorite coffee. Being the kind man he is, he smiled coyly and told me how much he’s looking forward to our breakfast. When I arrived at the group home and unleashed the amateur barista lurking inside me, I couldn’t have felt more excited about handing over a steaming cup of peppermint coffee replete with my very own foam adornment. Clearly unenthused but fiercely polite, my client let out a chuckle and said “thanks”. Intermittently but also excessively, I found myself asking him, “So what do you think of the coffee? Do you like it? It smells so good, right? The foam is just so fun, isn’t it?” I may as well have instructed him, “YOU ARE GOING TO LIKE THIS COFFEE, GODDAMNIT!” After the fourth or fifth time bringing up the coffee, he requested with a joking intonation: “Leave me alone!” I had effectively made a breakfast for Mitch about me. Still unsure as to why I allowed myself to be consumed with Mitch’s response to my coffee, my motivation had little to do with whether or not he actually enjoyed it, but if he liked what I had made. Do you see the difference? It's subtle and apparently subconscious, but the nuances tend to show themselves when our recipient doesn’t react in accordance with our expectations. I was guilty of seeking his approval for reasons still outside of my understanding, and I was painfully annoying in the process.  

Could this be any more narcissistic?

Much of our focus remains on the people-pleaser themselves, with minimal regard for the effect it has on others. I can empathize with the angst of feeling unloved, or as if we don’t belong, and I imagine it’s a cumbersome feeling to carry for those who are self-proclaimed people-pleasers. Also worth mentioning is a people pleaser’s inadvertent potential for damaging relationships; a person whose beliefs are dictated by what they assume others will approve of is a person who cannot be trusted beyond small talk. A dependent personality type is difficult to place in a relationship, as much of what is shared will likely be questioned as genuine or as conceding to insecurity. Some degree of insecurity is natural and even adaptive, as small shreds of doubt can incite more thorough self-evaluation and perspective taking. Beginning each sentence with a disclaimer and tacking a hollow apology at the end for good measure, though? I’m unsure excessive warnings are effective in placating the listener.

To reiterate, I empathize with people who are insecure about their own thoughts to the point of bastardizing them with trigger warnings and amendments. I wonder if they’re aware of how frequently they apologize for breathing, or if they consider their constant use of conversational clauses and retractions to be anything other than unnecessary. The first few times are usually acceptable and even quite endearing; I certainly can be quoted beginning a thought with statements like, “This may sound a bit off, so bear with me…” or “What I’m about to say may be hard to hear…” or even “I’m afraid to say it but I’m going to say it anyway.” When this becomes excessive, it may sound more like, “Okay so you’re probably going to judge me, and I wouldn’t even blame you if you did, because I probably deserve to be judged, but I did something that you probably can’t understand and I don’t even understand because it maybe was kind of bad, so think what you will of it, it’s fine if you think differently of me, etc. etc.” Why the need to excessively “check-in” with what another person believes of your shared opinion? Has this person experienced so much rejection or abandonment in their life that they feel the need to add fourteen self-deprecating statements to even the most benign of comments?

People genuinely big-hearted are those whose charitable behavior is not regularly announced to an audience. They recognize what they value and what brings purpose and meaning to their lives, a recognition completely detached from what they assume others will like or what others will resonate with. Their emotional needs are fulfilled by careful critique of their values, unlike the “bighearted” “people-pleaser”, who only attain the illusion of value through the controlling of another person’s behavior. Believe it or not, this is common, especially in serious relationships: it’s far less daunting to want to change another person than recognize it’s us who needs changing. To reference another meaningful quote I’ve stumbled upon: “Many will come to find that the only common denominator in our failed relationships… is us.”

If we are the common denominator, this can be great news: it implies that we can change our ways to increase more desirable outcomes in the future! To conclude with actionable strategies, I suggest taking careful stock of what drives your desire to please, along with very deliberate language swaps. In changing the way we refer to our behavior, we deter the risk in adopting people-pleasing as factoring into our personality versus something that can be changed with consistent and diligent effort. Essentializing people pleasing, or claiming that it’s “just who we are”, or it’s “just who we’ve always been”, lets an individual off the hook. Reframing very treatable behavior as threaded into our genetics nearly guarantees that we’ll see minimal reason to put the work in to change it; after all, it’s “a part of us”. It may benefit us to first begin with renaming people-pleasing as something we’re entirely responsible for and capable of changing.  

The Initial Assessment

Ask yourself the following questions…

Who is this for? Is it for me, or for them? Both? Explain.

Am I tying my happiness or self-worth to another person’s performance? How or how not?

What would it mean for me if the other person did not change?

What would it mean for me if I did not change?

What might I be expecting in return from another person through my behavior?

Deliteralizing Language

“I’m a people pleaser” = “I find myself concerned with how other people will react.”

“I know, it’s just because I’m a people pleaser” = “I have a habit of worrying too much about how other people will respond when I say no or disagree with them.”

“I’m just such a people pleaser…” = “I’m more interested in changing another person’s behavior than my own.”

“I’m a people pleaser” = “I’m not willing to tolerate another person’s negative reaction.”

At the end of this exercise, ask yourself: for someone so concerned with pleasing others, do I really believe my behavior is something people would be pleased with?

The Delay

In my work with a separate client from “Mitch”, he struggled to say “no”, mostly because he assumed his girlfriend would stop giving him blowjobs unless he conceded to her point of view. With this said, though, he found himself passively agreeing even with name-calling and completely inaccurate and hurtful statements, something he believed was not worth the foreplay. To practice saying “no”, all we initially did was insert a delay in responding. We called his behavior the “yes habit”, something that became so ingrained that he often skipped over any form of thinking period and defaulted to agreement.

The first phase involved telling him to become aware of when he was about to say “yes”, and to insert a 5-to-10-second delay. After the delay, he chose whatever he wanted to say--- even if that was a statement of agreement or passivity. The goal wasn’t necessarily to never say yes--- it was to draw awareness to how often it occurred, as well as to build tolerance to the discomfort of delay.

After we grew more comfortable with the delay, we began shifting his language from anything other than “yes” or “I agree”. It didn’t have to be a statement of disagreement or even a full-blown rejection; it could have been as simple as “hmm, I don’t know” or as banal as “beats me”. This provided similar benefits as pausing: building tolerance to discomfort is the linchpin in sticking to our guns conversationally, as it will arm us against the tendency to avoid conflict through remaining passive.

Best of luck to readers in their introspective endeavors, and do not forget: worry less about if people like you are not. They’re probably struggling to even like themselves.