After group conversations, people underestimated how much they were liked by others; people focus on negative aspects of the impressions they make on others

The liking gap in groups and teams. Adam M. Mastroianni et al. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 162, January 2021, Pages 109-122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.10.013

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1348524602255880192

Highlights

• After group conversations, people underestimated how much they were liked by others.

• This liking gap persisted in engineering teams working together on group projects.

• The effect was larger among peers than between supervisors and supervisees.

• The liking gap also had important consequences in a general sample of working adults.

• Consequences include team communication and efficacy as well as job satisfaction.

Abstract: Every relationship begins with a conversation. Past research suggests that after initial conversations, there exists a liking gap: people underestimate how much their partners like them. We extend this finding by providing evidence that it arises in conversations among small groups (Study 1), continues to exist in engineering teams working on a project together (Study 2), and is linked to important consequences for teams’ ability to work together in a sample of working adults (Study 3). Additional evidence suggests that the liking gap is largest for peer relationships and that it is determined in part by the extent to which people focus on negative aspects of the impressions they make on others. Group conversations and team interactions often leave people feeling uncertain about where they stand with others, but our studies suggest that people are liked more than they know.

Keywords: ConversationSocial interactionRelationship formationMeta-perceptionGroup dynamicsTeams