JonahSinick comments on How my social skills went from horrible to mediocre - Less Wrong
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It does apply to praise: I take statements of the type "you're so wonderful" as having much more to do with how the person feels than it has to do with me.
I suppose you already drew the obvious conclusion, but I still think it's worth spelling out:
The key to people liking you is making sure they feel good when you're around. Causality is secondary.
I learned to translate statements like "you are smart" as meaning "you agree with me". And, analogically, "you are stupid" (often phrased as "first I thought you were smart, but now I see you are not") as "you disagree with me".
I think it more has to do with being one step inferential distance from them, not simply agreeing. You tell them something they don't know or didn't finishing reasoning about, but yet something that makes sense to them instantly. They have 2 dots, you just connect them.