User:LukeMarkham/Liking gap

The Liking Gap

The liking gap is the gap between how much we think another person likes us and how much they actual like us. The current studies have found that most people underestimate how much another person liked them and enjoyed their company. This mistake is the liking gap.

Why the Gap Exists

This misunderstanding or gap has multiple factors that lead to or contribute to it. First people tend to be overly self-critical and ruminate about what they have said more. People tend to not think to much about what the other person said. (Brozovich & Heimberg, 2008; Mor & Winquist, 2002; Savitsky, Epley, & Gilovich, 2001). We are often very self-absorbed and think that everyone one is judging us as in the cheerleader effect or that people can see exactly what we are thinking in the illusion of transparency effect (Savitsky & Gilovich, 2003). Second in conversations we tend to be as polite as possible especially in first encounters and by doing this we hide true feelings (Blumberg, 1972; Brown & Levinson, 1987). Third people tend to protect against rejection and one way of doing this is to not show interest in someone (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003). Fourth conversations are often quite complex, and we miss verbal and nonverbal cues. An example of this is when we are thinking about what we want to say next (Keysar, 2007).

Studies Done

Different types of studies and replications have been done which has given some reliability to the liking gap. Although no specific all-encompassing factor has been determined to explain why it happens it appears in most conversations (Boothby, 2018).

The first study done was to see if there was a liking gap with a random stranger (first impression link). It showed that they underestimated how much their conversation partners liked and enjoyed their company. Videos of first encounters were judged to determine if verbal or nonverbal cues of enjoyment of the conversation led to less of a liking gap. It was shown that even when cues were given the gap persisted. It also was evident in conversations with different length from short, medium, and long conversations the gap was there. The gap was seen in a yearlong study of dorm mates. They participated in multiple tests over the year and the gap consistently appeared. It was reliably shown that people’s views of their own conversation tended to be more negative than their view of other people’s performance.

The gap is not showing that people are always negative. In fact, people usually have favorable views about themselves and others (Alicke, 1985; Kruger & Dunning, 1999). It does show more evidence for people’s self-criticism (link to self-criticism wiki) when thinking about their own interactions with others (Deri, Davidai, & Gilovich, 2017).

References

Alicke, M. D. (1985). Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives. Journal of Personality and social Psychology, 49(6), 1621.

Blumberg, H. H. (1972). Communication of interpersonal evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 23(2), 157.

Brown, P., Levinson, S. C., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Vol. 4). Cambridge university press.

Brozovich, F., & Heimberg, R. G. (2008). An analysis of post-event processing in social anxiety disorder. Clinical psychology review, 28(6), 891-903.

Deri, S., Davidai, S., & Gilovich, T. (2017). Home alone: Why people believe others’ social lives are richer than their own. Journal of personality and social psychology, 113(6), 858.

Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290-292.

Keysar, B. (2007). Communication and miscommunication: The role of egocentric processes.

Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of personality and social psychology, 77(6), 1121.

Mor, N., & Winquist, J. (2002). Self-focused attention and negative affect: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 128(4), 638.

Savitsky, K., Epley, N., & Gilovich, T. (2001). Do others judge us as harshly as we think? Overestimating the impact of our failures, shortcomings, and mishaps. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(1), 44.

Savitsky, K., & Gilovich, T. (2003). The illusion of transparency and the alleviation of speech anxiety. Journal of experimental social psychology, 39(6), 618-625.