How Good Praise Resembles Good Sex

Good praise is like good sex. It requires effort. You’ve got to get really personal and zero in on specifics.

Receiving generic praise—“Well done!” or “You’re great!”—feels nice for a fleeting moment but then can turn empty. Did they really mean it? Can you build a future with it? Vague praise often backfires by seeming insincere, thereby eroding trust. And frankly, it’s lazy.

Praise packs punch when it’s specific.

Here’s an example of good praise: “Your enthusiasm despite a tight budget, and your hands-on support of other team members made this project a success.” See how such specificity takes some thought? Also, this praise points to personal strengths—enthusiasm and being a team player. That makes is useful to the person being praised; it gives them something to build on.

Unlike sex, however, we might wonder whether giving good praise is worth the effort. What do we get out of it? And, is praise just a form of positive fluff, or does it make a measurable difference?

Science shows that praise pays off, big-time.

Research in both the business world, and in personal relationships, shows that praise increases productivity and strengthens bonds. Yet most of us don’t give—or get—nearly enough. A Gallup poll found that 65% of American employees reported receiving no praise for good work over the entire previous year! Meanwhile, surveys of 15 million people worldwide showed that the Number One reason people quit their jobs isn’t because they’re underpaid, but because they’re under-praised. The most loyal and highest achievers, on the other hand, are those who receive meaningful positive feedback.

Other studies show that romantic relationships fail when partners neglect to verbally appreciate each other. When that happens, each feels resentful and taken for granted. Such couples get caught in cycles of negativity, dishing out criticism instead of doling out praise. The simple exchange of authentic compliments (and lots of ‘em) has been proven to restore love.

One side benefit: Praise reduces stress.

Praise also makes people healthier by lowering stress—and even a little can help.

Consider this odd experiment from La Trobe University in Australia. First, scientists put all participants under a stress condition. Then half of the subjects watched a video of a person offering praise— “You are doing well,” or “That’s good.” Those subjects’ heart rates slowed and their stress hormone levels significantly dropped. (The control group experienced no such relief.) If canned video praise from a stranger measurably lowers stress, imagine what heartfelt praise from someone who actually knows you might do!

Now, perhaps you noticed the videotaped encouragement was generically vague. Well, on a neurological level, we won’t care whether a videotape is “insincere.” But if we sense that a real, live person is toying with us, we will care. When we suspect we’re being flattered by packaged praise, we feel ambivalent—wanting to believe, yet not fully trusting—and such ambivalence can be bad for us. In fact, it causes stress.

Ambivalence raises blood pressure.

In a study at Brigham Young University, 100 men and women wore devices that checked their blood pressure during every person-to-person interaction over three days. When interacting with allies, their pressure dropped. Interacting with adversaries, it rose. But their biggest jump in blood pressure came not from consorting with enemies, but rather from interacting with people they felt ambivalent about. Simply put, we like to know where we, and others, really stand.

If being too vague with your praise can make you seem untrustworthy, so can being too secretive. Here’s an example. My client Lynda felt stressed out because a fellow director at her company had praised her. Did Lynda have a problem accepting compliments? Not at all. It was the director’s delivery that spooked her.

Secretive praise arouses anxiety.

“This morning’s meeting was loud and contentious about when to release our next upgrade,” she told me. “I strongly argued for quality over speed. You know I enjoy a good debate. George told me later that I was eloquent and made great points. Now why would that creep me out?”

I asked her whether George had spoken up at the meeting.

“No, he didn’t. Actually his compliments later surprised me because I had thought maybe he agreed with the other side. Come to think of it, when he came over to my desk, he sort of glanced around, as if to make sure no one else could hear him. Eww, that’s sort of icky, isn’t it?”

Yes. By being so private with his praise, George made it seem as though either he’d been too cowardly to support Lynda in the meeting, or that his support was insincere. This triggered “icky” ambivalence in her, because she couldn’t know for sure whether he was friend or foe. Remember, the research shows that while we prefer friends over enemies, the people who cause us most anxiety are those wafflers who arouse our ambivalence.

Don’t create doubt. Speak out! Stand by your praise.

Lynda and George had a talk. “He said he was sorry for his silence at the meeting,” she reported. “I accepted his apology but advised him not to give compliments unless he’s willing to back them up publically.”

That’s good advice for all of us. To create trust, here are some ways to stand by your praise:

Speak up in front of a group.
Provide a public testimonial on social media.
Praise people in person and behind their backs (one of my favorites!).

Pinpoint others’ character strengths.

Okay, so you’re going to make your praise specific, and you’re going to stand by it. This will improve all your relationships, personal and professional. But wait. What is the highest purpose of praise? Is it to make you popular or to grandstand your munificence? It will do both those things, but its highest purpose is to empower and improve the person you are praising.

The best way to do that is to target your praise to alert others to their own core strengths. Putting people in touch with their personal strengths has been proven to measurably boost their self-esteem and performance, from grade-school children to college students to spouses to military recruits to corporate teams. (Want to read book-loads of research details? See Tom Rath’s How Full is Your Bucket?, and Martin Seligman’s Flourish.)

Hyperbolic praise may flatter but fails to empower.

Allow me to share a personal example. I once published a very dark, comic erotic novel. It won some literary awards, and it offended some people. Of course I enjoyed compliments more than barbs—but not all the positive comments were actually helpful. Endorsements such as, “Riveting!” or “Terrific!” sure inflated my ego, but did nothing to help me grow. In fact, they made me anxious about meeting (or failing!) newly raised expectations.

The singularly most helpful comment came from the late poet and memoirist Lucy Grealy. After receiving an early copy, she phoned me. “The word is courage,” she said. “You write about feelings and thoughts that most people don’t want to admit exist. For many, this will be much too honest. I’m giving you a blurb. You know you’re very brave.”

Sometimes we don’t recognize our own strengths.

Well Lucy was one of the bravest souls to walk the earth. (Childhood cancer had dealt her a disfigured face, and she never let it hold her back. Check out her inspiring memoir, Autobiography of a Face.) Until then, I hadn’t thought of myself as brave, because although I had done many brave things. I’d never felt brave. By praising my courage, Lucy helped me to see it, and to own it, which now allows me to draw on bravery as a core strength.

And thank goodness, because frankly I’m a scaredy-cat, often terrified of going forward in my work, my relationships, my life. (Being brave does not mean being fearless! It means, as Jack Canfield teaches, feeling the fear and taking action anyway.) Now, I can move forward much faster, secure that my courage will carry me.

Become a praise artist through daily practice.

Here is your challenge:

Develop a praise practice. Make sure you praise at least one person every single day.
Make your praise specific and sincere. Stand by it.
Target your praise to help others recognize their core strengths.

Does your colleague’s mentorship of an intern demonstrate her remarkable compassion? Does your child’s refusal to give up on calculus indicate deep determination? Does your sweetheart’s deft planning of your joint trip to France show a strength for strategy? You get the idea.

Ride out the initial resistance of a new habit.

Commit to giving praise daily for at least a month, because at first it may feel like a chore. When another of my clients, María, began her praise practice, she found that while others gladly accepted her kind words, they weren’t necessarily returning the favor. “I was making all this effort, which they didn’t even realize. It felt unfair,” she said. But her initial flicker of resentment naturally subsided over time, as her habit became more ingrained and effortless.

In the long run, when you give praise, you not only empower other people, and improve your relationships, you also receive a personal bonus. Three weeks into her praise practice, María told me that she was growing happier. “The more I’m praising them, the less I’m criticizing me,” she explained. “Now I’m seeing myself as a wonderful person.”

Which she is. And so are you. Therefore, start your praise practice now. Can you praise someone within the next 15 minutes? Can you commit to doing it well? Just as it’s true that the better lover you are, the more you enjoy sex, you will also discover that giving good praise becomes an exquisite pleasure.

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