Li Jiamin, Zhong Zhenchao, Mo Lei
Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510631, People's Republic of China.
School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.
Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2020 Sep 14;13:733-745. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S258057. eCollection 2020.
Recently, a study revealed that people liked others significantly more than they estimated that others liked them. Thus, the study found that people tended to underestimate how much others liked them, a phenomenon the authors called the Liking Gap. However, the logic and testing of the study existed unclear nature. In order to show whether people underestimate the positivity of impression they left on others, we directly compare the estimate of the impression we left on others with others' actual impression of us, which make the logic clear. Besides, we explored the new findings with regard to the mechanism of the effect.
Based on this idea, in study 1, we explored whether there is indeed a negative deviation effect in the estimate of the impression people left on others in short interpersonal communication. In study 2, we investigated the potential psychological mechanisms of that effect.
In Study 1, the results revealed that people estimated that others liked them significantly less than others actually liked them. That is, a negative deviation effect did occur, and even if people were clear about their liking for others, the effect still existed. In Study 2, we provided evidence that a negative deviation effect existed not just because people are too focused on their own-negative thoughts in conversational performance but rather because people had a psychological defense towards others in their first communication.
People significantly underestimate how much they are liked and its reason is that their psychological defense towards others in their initial communication. The results of the study are beneficial for people in social interaction and provide them with new ways of thinking in interpersonal communication and mutual contact.
最近，一项研究表明，人们喜欢他人的程度明显超过他们对他人喜欢自己程度的估计。因此，该研究发现人们往往低估他人对自己的喜欢程度，作者将这一现象称为“喜欢差距”。然而，该研究的逻辑和验证存在不清晰之处。为了表明人们是否低估了自己给他人留下的积极印象，我们直接将自己对留给他人印象的估计与他人对我们的实际印象进行比较，从而使逻辑清晰。此外，我们还探索了关于该效应机制的新发现。
基于这一想法，在研究1中，我们探究了在简短的人际交流中，人们对自己留给他人的印象估计是否确实存在负偏差效应。在研究2中，我们调查了该效应潜在的心理机制。
在研究1中，结果表明人们估计他人喜欢自己的程度明显低于他人实际喜欢自己的程度。也就是说，确实出现了负偏差效应，即使人们清楚自己对他人的喜欢程度，该效应仍然存在。在研究2中，我们提供的证据表明，负偏差效应的存在不仅仅是因为人们在对话表现中过于关注自己的负面想法，而是因为人们在初次交流时对他人存在心理防御。
人们显著低估了自己被喜欢的程度，原因是他们在初次交流时对他人存在心理防御。该研究结果对社交中的人们有益，并为他们在人际沟通和相互接触中提供了新的思考方式。
