By | PEMA BAKSHI | www.refinery29.com
It’s human nature to seek approval from others. We’ve generally needed to leverage our connections with people in order to survive. But beyond safety in numbers, humans are social animals, and the need to bond with others and find our own pockets of belonging are essential to our mental wellbeing.
And our need for social approval stems far and wide — a quick Google search for ‘how to be likeable’ serves over nine million results, with plenty of ‘How To’s and tips to curb your most unlikeable behaviours.
Luckily, life, for most of us, is not Survivor, and we don’t need to be so acutely tuned into the power dynamics of our friendship groups — not in any conscious way, anyway. For the most part, we hardly ever stop to consider just why we like the people we do and why people may or may not like us.
Some of us go off the intangible ‘vibes’ or look for similarities, while some may get more specific with music taste or even star signs. But while there’s really no right or wrong way to get along with someone, there is actually some science to it.
According to decades of research, people skills, and what makes popular people popular has long been a concern of human beings. And according to countless studies, there are plenty of evolutionary factors (and emotions) involved in whether or not we find a person to be likeable or not.
