The People-Pleasing Project, Vol. I: Introduction

people-pleasing (n): a person who has an emotional need to please others often at the expense of the person's own needs or desires

It is human nature to desire to be liked by others; inherently so.

That's not a matter of opinion. It's a fundamental fact of life, backed by generations of psychological research (as well as common sense).

Another fundamental fact of life, that we've actually explored on past articles: too much of anything can be unhealthy and harmful (as well as too little of most things).

Double tap the photo to learn more about 'mentality'.

You're probably already gathering where I'm going with this. The desire to be liked, loved, and even praised in some cases is indeed natural, but this desire in excess can become self-destructive in a litany & variety of ways.

People-pleasing.

A "puppet on string" depiction of people-pleasing. JASON CONNELL

MOTIVATION & INTENTION WITHIN CREATION

Let's first quickly examine the concept of people-pleasing under the context of creativity. This discussion is always a fascinating one to me; the conflict between creating for yourself versus creating for others (and their approval and validation).

New York City's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is one of the world's greatest and most diverse displays of original & abstract creative work.

Which side of this coin truly matters more to you?

If it's the former, your work will reflect who you are at your core much more often than not.

If it's the latter, your work will more-so reflect whatever else is being liked by others — in other words, pouring out of yourself & extending yourself in a fashion that can deviate from your core values to the benefit of others (and possibly even to the detriment of self).

Extending yourself in a fashion that can deviate your core values to the benefit of others and to the detriment of self... THAT is the ENTIRE essence of people-pleasing.

To continue with the idea of people-pleasing within creativity; here is a shoutout to a psychologist who wrote and published a book based off of her extensive research into this very topic: Dr. Teresa Amabile.

Dr. Teresa M. Amabile published her original work, 'The Social Psychology of Creativity' in 1983. She then published her update to that work, titled 'Creativity in Context' in 1996.

Today, Amabile serves as the Business Administration and Entrepreneurial Management unit at Harvard Business School. Before this, she served as one of the major, if not THE major pioneer in researching creativity and its ties to psychology and emotions.

There is a vast amount of Amabile's material I could quote in relation to the subject at hand here; her work in the subjects of creativity and psychology has that much depth to it.

To avoid writing for 12 more hours, though: here's her work on intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation in creativity.

"The intrinsic motivation principle of creativity states that people will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself — not by external pressures." — Amabile, CREATIVITY IN CONTEXT (1996)

"When people are primarily motivated by external rewards or constraints, their creativity is likely to be undermined." — Amabile, CREATIVITY IN CONTEXT (1996)

Instagram is notorious for fueling extrinsic motivation in its users through its emphasis on the likes, comments, reposts, story shares, and follower/following count/ratio.

Intrinsic motivation is self-motivation. It leads creatives to operate and create based mainly or solely off their own ideas and interests. If what they create is received well when made available for public consumption, like posting on Instagram or TikTok, for example — that's great... but that wasn't the main goal at the outset of their work.

Extrinsic motivation is motivation that is all about maximizing public admiration and appreciation. For example, a creator sees a style of posting that has a pattern of doing extremely well numbers-wise on social media. Even though it isn't necessarily their natural posting style, they can proceed to model their work after this style instead of just simply creating "from the heart", so to speak. (From what I've observed personally, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are full of this type of "homogenous" content.)

People-pleasing in the creative realm is the same in any other realm. I've written about the idea of people-pleasing as it relates to being principled (that can be found here). Creativity is most valuable at its most authentic — at its most original. So why do so many people drive what they create towards what will get them the most likes, reposts, overall engagement, and love?

Why do so many people engage in people-pleasing anyway? If it's so widely known that it's incredibly harmful to our mental health, why can't people-pleasers escape out of their own personal hell?

This is exactly what I'm looking to explore.

ENTER THE PEOPLE-PLEASING PROJECT

Introducing my intrinsically-motivated mental health project, The People-Pleasing Project.

In case you were wondering, the idea behind the logo: the masks depicted are the famed comedy and tragedy masks, which are the most widely known physical representation of the performing arts.

At the risk of sounding corny, here's the connection: the act of people-pleasing IS quite literally a performing art.

Outwardly, the people-pleaser may do whatever they're asked by their boss at work with fervor and enthusiasm, no matter how much the request(s) may inconvenience them.

The people-pleaser may do whatever they can — whether by request or by their own inclination — to satisfy their partner or romantic interest, no matter how much the action they're carrying out puts them in a poor position mentally, emotionally, or even financially.

The people-pleaser may even accept substandard treatment and behavior from their friends and inner circle in order to "keep the peace" and avoid "killing the vibe". Then, they might go home and sulk about it, lamenting that they didn't stand up for themselves, instead choosing their friends' peace over their own.

People-pleasers constantly operate between these masks.

Out in the open, they can be seen as happy-go-lucky, unselfish, gracious people; that's what their actions convey to those that they're dealing with.

Behind closed doors, however: people-pleasers can writhe in emotional pain, regret, lamenting, and even some real deep-seated resentment, especially when they feel like they're not getting back what they're always giving to others.

Humans are evolutionarily wired to fear social rejection because historically, it threatened survival. — Roy F. Baumeister (first image) & Mark Leary (second image), 1995. | PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN

Through meditative written work, self-reflections, situational examples & examination, and video interviews of multiple mental health professionals, we're going to examine what exactly people-pleasing is on this project, why it's so common & the type of people that it's common in, and what a habitual people-pleaser can do to turn the tide and reverse their own narrative.

There are many examples of mental health matters and conditions that I sense aren't taken seriously enough. People-pleasing is one of them.

From what I've seen, the act of people-pleasing gets a bit ridiculed from those on the "outside looking in". I'm talking about the all-too-common comments of "toughen up" and "love yourself". As is the case with many other mental health conversations, they deserve a lot more nuance than they usually wind up getting.

And that nuance is exactly what The Recess Bell and mentality seeks to provide. Stay locked in with The Recess Bell for the next chapters of the project.