Why do we people-please?
What experiments on exclusion and a diary study on motives say about why we agree, where the evidence is narrower, and whether the habit can change.
Answer to the question
Why do we people-please?
We people-please because approval matters to us, and agreeing feels like the quickest way to keep it. In experiments, students excluded from a game complied more afterwards, and a diary study tied giving way to avoid conflict to weaker relationship quality than giving way to please a partner. Research on goals suggests the habit can change.
Key takeaways
- In an experiment with 65 undergraduates, those excluded from a virtual ball-tossing game complied more with a donation request than those included, under all three request tactics (Carter-Sowell, Chen and Williams, 2008).
- In a second experiment with 62 participants, excluded participants were more likely to obey an instruction to go outside and take 39 photographs (Riva and colleagues, 2014).
- A two-week daily diary of college students in dating relationships linked approach motives for sacrifice to better relationship quality and avoidance motives to worse (Impett, Gable and Peplau, 2005).
- In a study of 263 participants, both higher and lower agreeable people preferred negotiation and disengagement to power assertion, and the difference was one of degree (Graziano, Jensen-Campbell and Hair, 1996).
- In two 16-week randomised experiments, people who set goals to raise a Big Five trait generally showed real increases, and the intervention built on implementation intentions helped most (Hudson and Fraley, 2015).
This article is general information about research on why people people-please, meaning why they agree to requests and give way to others. It is not medical or psychological advice, and nothing in it is a reason to change any treatment or to stop seeking care. Speak to a GP or another clinician about your own health. Medical review: Reja Batool.
A friend asks for a favour there is no room for, and the yes is out before the diary has been checked. The urge behind it is easy to feel and hard to explain, and one of the plainest clues comes from a ball-tossing game on a screen, where students who had been left out gave more when they were afterwards asked to donate money. That is why we people-please, on this evidence: agreeing is a way back toward other people, and the pull is strongest just after someone has been shut out.
Why do we people-please right after being left out?
Being ignored works as a social signal, and people who detect it often change their behaviour to be let back in. Adrienne Carter-Sowell, Zhansheng Chen and Kipling Williams gave that idea a direct test. Some of their 65 participants were included in the game and some were excluded, and each was then approached with one of three request tactics, among them the foot-in-the-door approach. The tactics made no difference to one another, and excluded participants complied more under all three.
A second experiment moved from a request to an order. Paolo Riva, Kipling Williams, Alex Torstrick and Lorenzo Montali randomly assigned 62 participants to inclusion, exclusion or a control condition. An experimenter then told each person to go outside in cold winter weather and take 39 different, creative photographs. Excluded participants were more likely to obey, while the included and control groups did not differ.
Both experiments describe a state and not a type of person, so the urge to people-please rose with circumstance: the same kind of student said yes more often after being treated differently in the lab. The reasoning fits the need to belong set out in Why Do We Need to Belong: a group member who has just lost standing has a reason to value approval, and agreement is the quickest way to signal it. Why do people conform follows the same pull into everyday group settings.
What separates a generous yes from a pleasing one?
Efforts to people-please can look the same from outside while the motive differs, and two people can give way to the same request for opposite reasons. Emily Impett, Shelly Gable and Letitia Peplau studied everyday sacrifice in dating relationships, the giving up of a personal preference for a partner, and separated approach motives, which aim at a good outcome, from avoidance motives, which aim at preventing a bad one. Their first study documented the sacrifices dating partners make and built a way to measure them. The second followed college students in relationships through a two-week daily diary.
Approach motives went with better relationship quality, and avoidance motives with worse. Sacrifice driven by avoidance was especially damaging to the relationship lasting over time, and seeing a partner's approach motives also related to relationship quality.
The behaviour on the day looked the same, and what differed was what the yes was for. That distinction is where the urge to people-please parts company with ordinary generosity. Giving up a preference to move toward something is part of most close relationships. Giving it up mainly to head off a reaction is the form the diary study tied to weaker outcomes, and it is closest to what most people mean when they say they people-please.
Wanting calm is common, and the lab says less
Beyond the lab, the widest evidence cuts against the picture of a small group who cannot bear conflict. In a study of 263 participants who rated how well 11 conflict strategies worked across five kinds of relationship, both higher and lower agreeable participants preferred negotiation and disengagement to power assertion. The gap was one of degree, since participants lower in agreeableness rated power assertion more favourably than the others did. A second study paired 124 participants to resolve two social problems together, with observers coding the recordings.
William Graziano, Lauri Jensen-Campbell and Elizabeth Hair framed agreeableness as shaping how conflict is perceived and handled. One way to read the result is that wanting calm is a widely shared preference, and that someone who people-pleases may hold it more firmly or across more situations. The data do not settle that.
Set against that wide wish for calm, the exclusion experiments are strong on one point: an experience of exclusion changed behaviour within the session. They are narrower on others. The requests came from a researcher, the participants were students, and each yes was a single act, so the studies do not show that a lasting habit forms the same way. The diary study followed dating partners for two weeks, which says more about motives in a close relationship than about a manager or a neighbour.
Adjusting to the room is itself a stable difference between people, as How Self-Monitoring Shapes What We Buy shows for shopping, and that fits a habit that varies in strength.
| Study | Who and what | What it found | Where it applies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carter-Sowell, Chen and Williams, 2008 | 65 undergraduates, exclusion in a game, then a donation request | Excluded participants complied more under all three tactics | Single requests after a brief exclusion |
| Riva and colleagues, 2014 | 62 participants, exclusion, inclusion or control, then an order | Excluded participants were more likely to obey | One instruction in a lab setting |
| Impett, Gable and Peplau, 2005 | College students in dating relationships, two-week diary | Approach motives went with better relationship quality, avoidance motives with worse | Motives for sacrifice in close relationships |
| Graziano, Jensen-Campbell and Hair, 1996 | 263 raters, then 124 participants in pairs | Both groups preferred negotiation and disengagement to power assertion | How people rate and handle conflict |
Can the habit of agreeing change over time?
Most people want to change some part of their personality, and the question is whether wanting is enough. Nathan Hudson and Chris Fraley ran two randomised experiments over 16 weeks. People who set goals to raise a Big Five trait generally showed real increases in that trait, in self-reports and in daily trait-relevant behaviour. The studies asked about raising traits, so they speak to whether goals move behaviour in general and not to lowering the habit of saying yes in particular.
The wish is widespread. A project with 13,278 college students in 55 countries or regions and 42 languages found that about 60 per cent were currently trying to change their personality. Among those who described their goals, the most common aims were emotional stability, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness.
Benjamin Hardy argues in Personality Isn't Permanent that traits are not fixed and that people can reshape them through choices and surroundings. The experiments back the direction of that claim, that goals generally moved traits. The pull to people-please also depends on the situation, as the exclusion studies show, so a change in surroundings is a change in the pressure.
Hudson and Fraley's studies compared two interventions, and plans did the work. One trained participants to form implementation intentions, which link a situation to a response, and it helped them reach the changes they wanted, whereas a second, more general intervention did not help participants reach their desired changes.
Common questions
Why do we people-please?
People-pleasing draws on the need for approval. In experiments, students excluded from a game complied more with requests afterwards, and a diary study found that giving way to avoid conflict went with weaker relationship quality than giving way to please a partner. The habit is common and, in the research on goals, open to change.
Is people-pleasing the same as being agreeable?
No. Agreeableness is a broad trait linked to how people perceive and handle conflict, and a study of 263 participants found that higher and lower agreeable people alike preferred negotiation and disengagement to force. People-pleasing describes the motive behind a particular yes.
Why does being left out make people say yes more?
Studies with Cyberball, a virtual ball-tossing game, found that excluded participants donated more when asked and were more likely to follow an instruction. The researchers describe this as ostracism raising social susceptibility, a way of seeking readmission to the group.
Can a person change the habit of saying yes?
Two 16-week experiments found that people who set goals to change a trait generally moved in that direction, and the intervention built on if-then plans helped most. The studies covered traits in general and not people-pleasing specifically.
Sources
Hardy, B. Personality Isn't Permanent. Seed book; vault hub Books/Personality Isn't Permanent.
Carter-Sowell, A. R., Chen, Z., & Williams, K. D. (2008). Ostracism increases social susceptibility. Social Influence, 3(3), 143-153. doi:10.1080/15534510802204868 https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510802204868
Riva, P., Williams, K. D., Torstrick, A. M., & Montali, L. (2014). Orders to shoot (a camera): Effects of ostracism on obedience. The Journal of Social Psychology, 154(3), 208-216. doi:10.1080/00224545.2014.883354 https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2014.883354
Impett, E. A., Gable, S. L., & Peplau, L. A. (2005). Giving up and giving in: The costs and benefits of daily sacrifice in intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(3), 327-344. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.89.3.327 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.3.327
Graziano, W. G., Jensen-Campbell, L. A., & Hair, E. C. (1996). Perceiving interpersonal conflict and reacting to it: The case for agreeableness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(4), 820-835. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.4.820 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.4.820
Hudson, N. W., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Volitional personality trait change: Can people choose to change their personality traits? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(3), 490-507. doi:10.1037/pspp0000021 https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000021
Baranski, E., Members of the International Situations Project, Gardiner, G., Lee, D., & Funder, D. C. (2021). Who in the world is trying to change their personality traits? Volitional personality change among college students in six continents. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 121(5), 1140-1156. doi:10.1037/pspp0000389 https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000389