Why we seek approval
Michelline Nawatises
From childhood, we constantly push ourselves to impress the people around us, whether they be family, friends or anybody who happens to be in front of us at a particular moment.
During all the time we spend trying to make those people like us, we never stop to ask ourselves why we desire their approval.
Part of it could be that we need the ones around us to see our accomplishments, in order to feel valid.
We naturally refuse to trust our own judgements and no matter how egotistical we may appear, in the end we still require the assurance of others to feel good about ourselves.
Perhaps one reason we feel the need to be appraised by others is because we desire to feel like we are more important to our peers than we are to ourselves. Feeling loved and belonging is the third most important aspect of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, meaning we need to feel loved in order to have self-esteem and achieve self-actualisation.
People are most critical of themselves and therefore feel validated by others around them, who assure them of their accomplishments. Those who boast of their own success seek only to have other people appreciate and support them. Because people constantly need reassurance and positive feedback about every little thing they do, they avoid people who are prone to discredit their success and bring them down.
Taking time out of the day to spend time with people who are constantly showing contempt for our achievements proves to be a remarkably hard task, as it takes plenty of willpower to listen to the opinions of those who are simply trying to bring down our self-esteem. Because we do not trust ourselves, we seek positive views held of us by other people. Nothing is more reassuring to people than feeling like they belong, rather than like an outcast with poor ideas and very few accomplishments. Being reminded of our success by other people makes us feel secure and more confident about ourselves.
The first and most important sources of approval to us are our parents, who raise us to be a certain way from the day we are born, and expect us to obey them in every circumstance. Our parents put us through school, enforce their will upon us and punish us for disobedience.
In school we might have to achieve a grade threshold to be approved by our parents, who validate and secure our success. Some of us lose the ability to achieve high grades for ourselves, learning only to succeed in order to gain approval from our parents.
This early conditioning holds a major impact for a child's later life, as you become used to impressing and pleasing those who you value.
Instagram and Twitter are two of the most popular social media sites on the web, which people consistently use as ways to validate their lives.
Posting a picture on Instagram of an award or of your graduation are ways of getting other people to see what you are doing and assures us that they are happy for us.
Nobody on Instagram posts a picture without first considering how many likes they will get.
Social media causes people to seek approval even more and results in constant posts or tweets to find other people who like us or agree with what we have to say.
We all consistently say and do things that misrepresent our character, for the purpose of gaining approval. When we are in a group that expresses an opinion different from ours, we conform by agreeing with them as to acquire their approval.
Why do we feel the necessity to gain approval? Earlier I mentioned the hierarchy of needs, which places all the basic needs of life in order of importance. First there are physiological needs - what we physically need to survive: food, water, air, sleep, clothing, etc.
Without these needs the human body cannot be sustained and ultimately fails to support itself.
After physical needs come safety needs, or feelings of security, such as personal and financial security and health and hygiene. Once physiological and safety needs are met, people then seek to fill their core emotional needs.
This is not a choice, as we require friendships and deep emotional ties to feel more secure about ourselves. The reason we seek out the approval and affection of other people is to make us feel better and more comfortable with our own lives.
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From childhood, we constantly push ourselves to impress the people around us, whether they be family, friends or anybody who happens to be in front of us at a particular moment.
During all the time we spend trying to make those people like us, we never stop to ask ourselves why we desire their approval.
Part of it could be that we need the ones around us to see our accomplishments, in order to feel valid.
We naturally refuse to trust our own judgements and no matter how egotistical we may appear, in the end we still require the assurance of others to feel good about ourselves.
Perhaps one reason we feel the need to be appraised by others is because we desire to feel like we are more important to our peers than we are to ourselves. Feeling loved and belonging is the third most important aspect of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, meaning we need to feel loved in order to have self-esteem and achieve self-actualisation.
People are most critical of themselves and therefore feel validated by others around them, who assure them of their accomplishments. Those who boast of their own success seek only to have other people appreciate and support them. Because people constantly need reassurance and positive feedback about every little thing they do, they avoid people who are prone to discredit their success and bring them down.
Taking time out of the day to spend time with people who are constantly showing contempt for our achievements proves to be a remarkably hard task, as it takes plenty of willpower to listen to the opinions of those who are simply trying to bring down our self-esteem. Because we do not trust ourselves, we seek positive views held of us by other people. Nothing is more reassuring to people than feeling like they belong, rather than like an outcast with poor ideas and very few accomplishments. Being reminded of our success by other people makes us feel secure and more confident about ourselves.
The first and most important sources of approval to us are our parents, who raise us to be a certain way from the day we are born, and expect us to obey them in every circumstance. Our parents put us through school, enforce their will upon us and punish us for disobedience.
In school we might have to achieve a grade threshold to be approved by our parents, who validate and secure our success. Some of us lose the ability to achieve high grades for ourselves, learning only to succeed in order to gain approval from our parents.
This early conditioning holds a major impact for a child's later life, as you become used to impressing and pleasing those who you value.
Instagram and Twitter are two of the most popular social media sites on the web, which people consistently use as ways to validate their lives.
Posting a picture on Instagram of an award or of your graduation are ways of getting other people to see what you are doing and assures us that they are happy for us.
Nobody on Instagram posts a picture without first considering how many likes they will get.
Social media causes people to seek approval even more and results in constant posts or tweets to find other people who like us or agree with what we have to say.
We all consistently say and do things that misrepresent our character, for the purpose of gaining approval. When we are in a group that expresses an opinion different from ours, we conform by agreeing with them as to acquire their approval.
Why do we feel the necessity to gain approval? Earlier I mentioned the hierarchy of needs, which places all the basic needs of life in order of importance. First there are physiological needs - what we physically need to survive: food, water, air, sleep, clothing, etc.
Without these needs the human body cannot be sustained and ultimately fails to support itself.
After physical needs come safety needs, or feelings of security, such as personal and financial security and health and hygiene. Once physiological and safety needs are met, people then seek to fill their core emotional needs.
This is not a choice, as we require friendships and deep emotional ties to feel more secure about ourselves. The reason we seek out the approval and affection of other people is to make us feel better and more comfortable with our own lives.
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