Are you the type to lie in bed at night dwelling on conversations from the day — perhaps reliving an awkward moment at a dinner party or wondering if you said the right thing during a Zoom call with a colleague? It’s a common practice, and unfortunately, it can lead to the common conclusion that people don’t like us as much as we hope they do.
Thanks to robust research on the subject, however, we can happily report that this interpretation is — in most cases — likely incorrect.
That’s according to a team of psychologists who spent nearly a decade investigating the accuracy of individuals’ beliefs about the way others perceive them, specifically looking at whether humans are correct in their predictions of whether or not someone else likes them.
After tens of thousands of observations, the researchers determined that not only do we underestimate how much people like us, but also that this...continue here.
-- Rebekah Brandes