The prospect of giving compliments, Boothby and Bohns found, can make people skittish. They worry “their awkwardness is on display and that people are noticing—and judging—them for their many flaws and faux pas.” But in the experiments, people’s predictions—about themselves and others—proved way off. They drastically overestimated how “bothered, uncomfortable, and annoyed” the person receiving their compliment would feel—and underestimated how positively that person would react.[5] It wasn’t awkward at all.
