World Compliment Day

What the day is

World Compliment Day is observed on March 1. It originated in the Netherlands and spread from there, on the premise that recognition costs nothing and is chronically underused.

Origin and background

The research explains the shortfall precisely. Experiments in which people were asked to pay a stranger a compliment, and to predict beforehand how awkward it would be and how good the recipient would feel, found the predictions consistently wrong in the same direction. Participants overestimated how uncomfortable the exchange would be and substantially underestimated how much it would please the other person. The compliments were better received than the givers expected, and the fear of awkwardness was the thing preventing them.

A second finding concerns what compliments are actually made of. People worry about eloquence and the recipients do not notice it; what registers is specificity. Naming a particular thing somebody did conveys that you were paying attention, which is the content of the compliment, while a general pleasantry conveys only politeness.

Receiving well is the harder half and gets less attention. Deflecting a compliment, contradicting it or immediately returning one rejects something that was offered, and people who habitually do it report finding compliments uncomfortable while ensuring they keep being uncomfortable. Thank you, said plainly and without qualification, completes the exchange.

One caveat worth stating. The evidence for compliments in a workplace points at effort and decisions rather than at appearance, which carries risks in professional settings and lands differently depending on who is saying it to whom.

How to take part

• Say the thing you were going to keep to yourself. The awkwardness is imagined.
• Be specific about what they did, which is what actually registers.
• Say thank you and stop, rather than deflecting or returning fire.
• Compliment work and choices rather than appearance, particularly at work.
• Pass on praise you have heard secondhand, which almost never reaches the person.