Evaluating the psychological and social nature of actual and perceived liking gaps.

• DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000548
• Publication Date: 2025-02-24T14:49:06Z
• Authors: Hasagani Tissera; Norhan Elsaadawy; Gus Cooney; Lauren J. Human; Erika N. Carlson
• Keywords: Social approval

Our beliefs about how much we are liked tend to be less positive than liking judgments of others, a finding termed the "liking gap." Because past work has studied gaps at sample level, it overlooked important nuances in these can measured and experienced. We introduce distinction between actual gap (i.e., between-person discrepancy others actually like us think us) perceived within-person us). Across three large first-impression samples (Ntotal = 2,753), use condition-based regression analyses examine (a) who tends exhibit gaps, (b) people experience social interactions marked by gaps. findings suggest that display two types perceived, psychologically distinct. Larger negative were related indicators insecurity lower self-esteem, higher anxiety, neuroticism), whereas did not show same pattern. Neither was reliably associated with quality people's interaction. Finally, our approach also allowed isolate unique effect feeling as robust, consistent correlate both psychological adjustment interaction quality. Overall, this research offers new insights into (mal)adaptiveness (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).