THE PEOPLE PLEASING TRAP (AND HOW TO ESCAPE IT)

Are you a doormat if you constantly make sacrifices for other people? Or are you simply being a nice person by putting others' needs ahead of your own? Psychologists think there's something deep at work

- by AMY ARTHUR

Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, who instilled in me the importance of politeness and the authority of adults. These principles turned me into the kind of child that teachers loved and that my peers mocked.

I raised my hand to answer every question and volunteered to hand out books at every opportunity. It could've been that I was innocently trying to be a good student, but I'm sure I also thought that being in my teachers' good books might give me some kind of academic advantage. I was people pleasing.

As I grew up, I found new people to please. Lecturers, recruiters, strangers on the internet. I hid behind the excuse that I was saying 'yes' to things I really wanted to say 'no' to, because it would further my career. And by doing so, I was really saying 'no' to things that could've offered me a happier life, like spending time with family.

But I reasoned, that as someone at the start of what I hoped would be a long, successful career, what was wrong with a little personal sacrifice?

“There are many reasons why we do nice things for other people,” says Prof Toru Sato, a psychologist at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, in the US. Sato began studying people pleasing in the early 2000s, concerned with its link to depression and anxiety.

One reason people pleasers make sacrifices is in the hopes of receiving something later down the line. “We do that all the time, right?” says Sato. “We do it at work and in relationships with people: ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’.”

If everyone in the transaction feels happy with what they give and what they receive, the process is relatively neutral (and not harmful). For example, a people pleaser at work who puts in extra hours in the hopes of receiving a promotion may be happy to do so, provided their organisation rewards them.