Entry 0037

Not sure if "people-pleaser" is a good characteristic to have when applying for a cybersecurity-related job. Or at least not a good idea to mention it in one's resume.

It has good and bad connotations. On the one hand, it can be seen as a vulnerability that can be exploited. On the other hand, it can be seen as a "soft skill" that is coveted by employers. On the third hand, there is the fawning trauma response connotation, which can be seen as pathological.

My personal experience with fawning, social trauma, and rejection sensitivity has made people-pleasing both a strength and a weakness for me. It's taken a lot of trial and error for me to shape it into more of a strength, and I'm still not quite there yet. I also want to clarify that it is not the same as unconditional sycophancy, though I can definitely imagine a case of social trauma in which that would be the person's manner of fawn response.

I hypothesize that people-pleasing is, by default, a healthy, pro-social personality trait that people have, and it has the potential to become a more pathological trauma response, given certain environmental conditions. I also hypothesize that people-pleasing, or fawning, as a trauma response, is part and parcel of social anxiety disorder. Maybe there are people who have social anxiety disorder who are decidedly not people-pleasers, but for me, I experience them to be interconnected.