User:Wikiaccount54321/sandbox

Reasons

Research has suggested that people who use backhanded compliments do this to elicit both liking and respect at once. Backhanded compliments might be used instead of regular compliments because backhanded compliments do not potentially place the complimenters skill or status beneath the skill or status of the complimented. Backhanded compliments are not only used to enhance liking and respect, they are also used when ones social status is in danger: by giving another person a backhanded compliment one can defend ones own status. An example of this might be an employee who has had some bad feedback from his supervisors and consequently gives one of his coworkers a backhanded compliment. He makes his coworker look bad via the backhanded compliment and consequently looks better in comparison.