213 - Is Being “Too Helpful” Lowering Your Value?
Everyone asks for favors. But if you’re too available, too nice, too accommodating, does that actually lower your value in other people’s eyes?
Joe’s father-in-law has him holding the ladder whenever they’re hanging Christmas lights or painting shingles. Then there’s the chicken coop that needs re-wiring, the flashlight that needs holding while the old man works on the plumbing, and the shrubs that need moving and measuring… There is, apparently, an unlimited supply of menial errands, and Joe is the man who gets called to hold the other end of the measuring tape. So is there a dark side to doing too many favors for too many people? A hidden dark side to being too available all the time? Is Joe’s father-in-law slowly seeing him as “too available” or too much of a helper?
Can being “too helpful” lower our number?
Today we talk about a 1982 review in Psychological Bulletin, which argues that the deciding factor isn't gratitude, it's whether your help threatens the other person's self-esteem. The wider the skill gap you put on display, the worse the recipient can feel, and the faster they may reach for the excuse that you're "just a different breed" or that you’re a “chronic giver” and write your charity off as unimportant. We also use science and psychology to split hairs and figure out how helpful is just enough, and when is offering our services actually creating an unfair debt that can never be repaid, which can actually lower your value in someone’s eyes, rather than raising it.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2017.1353484