Why Being a Bit Imperfect Makes You More Likeable

With the rise of AI and people flaunting their Instagram lives and moments on social media, there is a sense of perfection and exceptionally high standards which everybody is trying to achieve. Everything is just so polished these days (I’m guilty too, all my content is self written and then thrown into Claude to help with grammar and flow). All of these behaviors have started to create an illusion of perfection which, ironically, is less appealing and less relatable than people think. Perfection pushes more people away than it attracts them.

There is some pretty cool science and research behind this too. In 1966, social psychologist Elliot Aronson conducted a study where he had people listen in to a quiz show. There were 4 contestants who featured on the show.

Person A: A competent contestant (he answered 92% of the questions correctly)
Person B: An average contestant (he answered 30% of the questions correctly)
Person C: A competent contestant (he answered 92% of the questions correctly, spilled coffee on himself)
Person D: An average contestant (answered 30% of the questions correctly, spilled coffee on himself)

Participants (listeners) were then asked to rate the overall “likability” of each of the contestants. The order in which they ranked them was as follows: C (92% correct, spilled coffee on himself), A (92% correct), B (30% correct), D (30% correct and spilled coffee on himself).

You would assume the most competent individual would get the highest vote. Clearly that is not the case here. The research behind this goes on to prove that when people are perfect, we struggle to connect and relate to them. They just seem too distant and untouchable (Person A). When someone demonstrates a bit of humanity, or is not picture perfect but has demonstrated competence, we tend to like them more (Person C).

There is one caveat to the research. Making an error (like spilling coffee) or being unpolished does not guarantee that people will like you. In fact, those individuals were the least liked of the lot (Person D), so you still need to prove your competence first.

In follow up research, they also uncovered that these blunders or mess ups had to be genuine. When people recognised that others were deliberately making mistakes, they lost even more credibility.

So what does this tell us. People can relate to imperfection. It’s what makes us human and relatable.

This all ties back to what we encourage at The Influence Authority: be sincere and genuine. People can see through the facade pretty quickly and you become less relatable. So don’t worry about every email or post being absolutely pitch perfect. Don’t lose sleep over an incorrect slide or a punctuation or formatting error. Own your mistakes, demonstrate confidence and credibility, and you will naturally be more likeable.

BRB, I’m off to make coffee 🙂