The 'Like' Trap: How to Stop Chasing External Praise and Find Inner Worth
Episode Summary
In this episode of Weekly Wisdom, host John Sampson dives into a fundamental human need that is amplified and often distorted by the digital world: the need for external validation and praise. From childhood approval to the modern obsession with social media metrics, we explore why we crave recognition and the profound psychological impact when this healthy need turns into an unhealthy dependence on the opinions of the unknown masses. Drawing on the wisdom of ancient philosophical giants—Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius—the episode reveals that the most enduring answers to this modern problem are found within.
Key Takeaways & Discussion Points
The Ancient Problem: The desire for external validation is a fundamental psychological need that has occupied thinkers for thousands of years, long before social media.
The episode begins with a quote from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations on the fleeting nature of reputation and applause.
A Natural Need: Seeking approval from close circles and family is normal and healthy; it reinforces belonging and social connection.
This need is tied to Maslow's hierarchy, falling into the belonging and esteem needs after safety and physiological needs are met.
The Dopamine Feedback Loop: External validation is neurologically reinforced through the release of dopamine in the brain's reward center, conditioning us to seek more of the same behavior.
The Social Media Exacerbation: Social media's quantifiable metrics ("likes," shares, followers) have created a challenging feedback loop where self-esteem can be tied to fleeting numbers.
Validation from the large, unknown audience is often superficial and unstable compared to meaningful relationships.
Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory helps explain the unhealthy comparisons that arise when people view carefully curated online images and performances.
The Danger of Dependence: Excessive reliance on external praise can lead to anxiety, depression, a destruction of self-worth, and an unstable sense of self.
Philosophical Wisdom on Self-Worth
Plato
Opinion vs. Knowledge: Plato considered the opinion of someone without knowledge to be fundamentally worthless.
Allegory of the Cave: The prisoners valuing shadows over reality is a metaphor for grounding self-worth in fleeting, changeable, and false opinions of the crowd.
Loss of Self: Appealing solely to the masses means the crowd, not your inner drive, dictates your creative work, leading to shallow and unfulfilling results.
Aristotle
Praise vs. Virtue: Honor (praise) is too superficial for the ultimate good because it depends on the bestower and can be easily taken away.
Seek Wisdom, Not Approval: Praise should only be sought from those who know you (practical wisdom) and should reflect something real, like your virtue or the excellence of your work.
Seneca (Stoic)
Content with Few or None: Seneca suggests pursuing your craft for the right, intrinsic reasons—even if your audience is small or nonexistent.
Focus Inward: Scorn the pleasure from the applause of the majority and let your "good qualities... face inwards".
Weigh, Not Count: Implores his friend Lucilius to "weight, and not merely count, men’s judgments," preferring to please himself rather than the populace.
Marcus Aurelius (Stoic)
Praise as "Clacking of Tongues": He dismisses public praise, asking, "What use is praise, except to make your lifestyle a little more comfortable?"
The True Prize: The ultimate goal is to do what we were designed for, grounding self-worth in our own mind and self, not in external recognition.
Dichotomy of Control: The Stoic principle that others' opinions are outside our control, making it irrational to focus on them.
Modern Psychological Remedies
The strategies suggested by modern psychology align with ancient philosophy by focusing on building a strong inner sense of self:
Self-Awareness and Reflection: Recognizing triggers and setting boundaries (e.g., limiting how often you check social media metrics).
Cognitive Restructuring: Challenging negative thoughts and replacing them (e.g., asking "Is this thought really true?").
Self-Compassion: Talking to yourself as you would a friend; neurological studies show practicing this can reshape the brain's response to release the same neurochemicals as external praise.
Intrinsic Goals: Grounding self-worth in personal values and passion and focusing on improving your craft, regardless of the superficial metrics.
The unifying message: The value you get from your pursuits should be enough for you. Focus on being worthy of praise, not seeking it.
Are you tired of feeling defined by likes, followers, or the fleeting approval of others? This episode tackles the universal need for external validation, exploring how it’s been magnified by social media metrics and the resulting dopamine hit. Host John Sampson dives into the timeless wisdom of Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius to show you why building your worth on the "clacking of tongues" is a fool's errand. Learn practical psychological remedies like cognitive restructuring and self-compassion to shift your focus inward and cultivate an imperturbable sense of self. #philosophy #podcast #psychology #praise #stoicism
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Welcome to the Weekly Wisdom podcast with your host, John Sampson.
“Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us – how capricious they are, how arbitrary.”
This is a quote from the Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations. Our topic today is seeking external praise, and in particular, praise from those we don’t know.
We’ve all done this, right. As children, then teenagers, and later as adults. The object from whom we desire this praise and validation changes over time, but the need is always there. As a kid, it’s your parents, as a teenager, it’s other teenagers, particularly those you think are cool or attractive. And as an adult, it’s your boss, your coworkers, or that cute guy or girl. As we’ll discuss though, at some point this need can become too strong, where it becomes a problem and is no longer a healthy part of our development and our relationship with the world.
Now, this topic has gotten a lot of play in the last five to ten years, but this is not a new problem, and despite much of the focus in the last decade, it wasn’t created by social media. However, as we’ll discuss, social media can certainly exacerbate the problem. Instead, this is actually a question that occupied the minds of some of history’s most brilliant thinkers thousands of years ago, and there are deep evolutionary and neurological drivers behind the need for external validation and praise.
This desire is considered a fundamental psychological need for people, which seems logical, right? We need to fit in with others to be an accepted member of the group and benefit from that connectedness. The problems arise when this need moves from a moderate level of validation from people close to us, that know us, to a more extreme reliance on the approval from external sources that we don’t know, particularly all those anonymous keyboard warriors out there in the digital world. This shift in the source of our validation, particularly through “likes, views, and shares”, can have significant impacts on our psychological health, and can lead to anxiety, depression, and the destruction of our own self-worth.
Now, let’s quickly clarify what we mean by external validation or external praise, which is the active pursuit of approval, praise, and recognition from sources other than ourselves. It’s pretty normal and even healthy to seek this from our close social circles and our families, and this is actually an important part of healthy social interaction. It gives us reassurance, and it lets us know that we belong and that our actions are viewed favorably by our social circle. Any of you who have ever taken a psychology course will remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. As he describes, once our physiological and safety needs are met, we move into belonging and esteem needs. This leads us to seek friendship, acceptance, social connection, and respect and recognition from others.
You can see how this is beneficial from a societal point of view and in the natural evolution of our social interactions. Imagine for a second a group of people trying to live cohesively in a community or together in a family that didn’t care at all what other people thought of them or their actions. It would be much harder for that community to grow and thrive, because there would be little motivation to help each other and treat each other with respect.
As we now know, this external validation is neurologically reinforced through the release of dopamine. Dopamine has gotten a lot of attention in recent years and as you likely know is a neurotransmitter in the brain’s reward center and this release gives us a temporary sensation of happiness and pleasure, which then chemically reinforces and conditions us to seek out more of the same behavior that led to the original reward. So, we have developed evolutionarily to seek external praise, seemingly for the societal benefits mentioned before. Now, it’s important to note though that the release of dopamine is also a key factor in driving the addictive behavior as we seek out more of this chemical release.
Given that it seems engrained in us, it makes sense that this behavior begins from the earliest stages of life. If you’ve ever been around babies, toddlers, and young children, I’m sure you can picture moments where they do some action and then look to see the reaction from their parent. When this reaction is positive, they repeat the behavior, looking for the same reaction. This helps us learn appropriate behaviors and how to conduct ourselves around others.
However, it’s important to note that if we become overly reliant on the opinions of others, particularly those who we don’t know, we can develop a state where our entire sense of self is driven by these other opinions rather than who we, and those closest to us, know us to be.
So, while this need is something that is natural and has developed through evolution, the recent rise of technology and particularly social media, has moved much faster than evolution could ever match, which creates a challenge for how we as a society deal with our current reality and this new way of receiving validation, where our desire to seek approval has become amplified.
The quantifiable metrics associated with social media, the “likes”, shares, comments, and followers has created a feedback loop where our own self-esteem can be tied to these metrics. Studies have shown that we get dopamine hits from these very metrics, and they are seen as signs of our standing within society. Those studies also show a positive correlation between the number of likes and a person’s reported self-worth. Unfortunately, this creates a situation where someone’s value is not inherent, or based on their quality of character, but instead, on their ability to perform for an audience and get positive feedback. Now, think how this compares to how you judge someone’s worth that you actually know. You don’t value them based on their performances but based on who they are and their consistent actions that more accurately show their character.
We now know that when we don’t get enough validation through these social media metrics, it can lead to profound feelings of rejection, which is a threat to our needs of belonging and acceptance. At the same time though, we know that validation from a large, unknown group or audience is much less stable and superficial compared to that same validation from those with whom we have meaningful relationships.
Leon Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory, states that people have an innate drive to evaluate their own abilities and opinions by comparing themselves to others, which helps us understand where we stand in social and personal contexts. Now think about what this means for our current world where you have these carefully curated images and performances placed online for everyone to see. And this is what people are most actively viewing on a daily basis and comparing themselves to. You can see how this comparison of not just images, but also followers and “likes”, then can become incredibly unhealthy, particularly among adolescents who don’t have as many other experiences to draw from to form their conclusions.
The consequences of this excessive dependence on external validation, particularly from the unknown masses can lead to meaningful psychological problems. The happiness we experience from the dopamine that’s released is fleeting and it fades quickly, leading us to become dependent on similar reactions as we seek that next hit. This isn’t too dissimilar to what happens with drug addicts. And anxiety problems can be created as a result of the uncertainty and inconsistency.
Our own self-worth can become unstable based on the perceived successes or failures related to this inconsistency. It prevents us from developing our own strong sense of self. And, that instability in our self-worth creates a cycle of insecurity and leaves us vulnerable to various disorders like depression.
One of my favorite phrases to always keep in mind is that we have to accept our reality and move forward from here. Since we’re not going to go back in time and remove social media, and since the problem of overreliance on external validation is one that is thousands of years old and only exacerbated by social media, the question is, how can we arm ourselves mentally to be able to handle these pressures and protect our psyche?
And I think we can find many of those answers in the teachings of some of history’s most capable thinkers, whose knowledge transcends time and technology. While some of the specific teachings of these philosophical schools differ, you’ll notice that there are some key similarities that can provide us with real, practical ways of addressing this issue of external validation; and, not surprisingly, the answers are found within.
Plato believed that there were two primary modes of cognition, knowledge and opinion or belief. He described opinion as inherently unstable and unreliable. Since it doesn’t have a foundation in evidence or reasoning, it requires no accountability or understanding, which is why it can spread so quickly to become widespread public opinion.
Now think about society today, and how true this is. How viral certain statements can become and how easily public opinion can be swayed.
Plato describes the opinion of someone who does not have knowledge as fundamentally worthless. For example, he says “just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.” So, he’s delineating between the opinions of the masses and the opinions of people who have knowledge about a subject and therefore may have something useful to add with their opinions.
Plato goes on to criticize those who deliberately appeal to the masses, he says, “I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him – he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honorable and that dishonorable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great beast.”
“And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the state, making them his judges when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise.”
This section goes beyond just the discounting of public opinion due to their lack of knowledge but talks about a loss of one’s sense of self. If you become so consumed with what will please the masses, then ultimately, they will be the drivers of what you create, not you. If you produce something creative, you’re driven to do that by some inner drive, but if you’re just trying to produce something that appeals to the masses and sells the most, your work is destined to be shallow and unfulfilling.
But, perhaps Plato’s most famous way of addressing this issue is through the Allegory of the Cave, which is a metaphor for illusory opinions. In the allegory, he describes prisoners who have been chained in a cave since birth and are facing a wall. Behind them, a fire burns, and people and other objects cast shadows on the wall, which then become the only reality that these prisoners ever know. Their “wisdom” then is based on predicting what shadow would be seen next. These shadows represent opinion that they mistake for reality and the prisoners by extension represent humanity. When one of the prisoners is able to leave the cave and see reality, or become enlightened, and then returns, his eyes take time to adjust and he is mocked for his inability to interpret the shadows, with the other prisoners saying that his eyes have been ruined. This prisoner now feels pity for the other prisoners and their foolish honors that they give to each other.
The takeaway for our purpose today is that for us to ground our self-worth in the opinions of others is to build a life on the foundations of fleeting, changeable, and ultimately false shadows. That the person who values the opinion of the crowd is no different from the prisoner who values their ability to falsely interpret the shadows on the wall. That faceless crowd is likely just as ignorant of our own character, or of the specific art form that they seek to judge.
In his work Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses praise in the form of a discussion of honor in terms of honor received from others as he searches for the ultimate good that people should be seeking. He says, “A consideration of the prominent types of life shows that people of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honor; for this is, roughly speaking, the end of the political life. But it seems too superficial to be what we are looking for, since it is thought to depend on those who bestow honor rather than on him who receives it, but the good we divine to be something proper to a man and not easily taken from him. Further, men seem to pursue honor in order that they may be assured of their goodness; at least it is by men of practical wisdom that they seek to be honored, and among those who know them, and on the ground of their virtue; clearly, then, according to them, at any rate, virtue is better.
So, to unpack what he’s saying here, he starts by saying how honor, which we can take to mean praise in this sense is something that many men seek, but that praise is given to him by someone else and can be just as easily taken away as it is given. He then hits at a point we’ve touched on previously, which is that those who are wise at least seek that praise from people who know them, and seek it based on their virtue or character, rather than more superficial reasons.
He also says, “now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge”. This furthers the point about seeking validation from those who know, whether they know us, or know our subject rather than from the uninformed.
From Aristotle’s point of view, it is not that we should shun praise, but that we should only accept it if it reflects something real and that it should be based on our own virtues or reflect the excellence of our work. We need to focus on being worthy of praise rather than on seeking praise.
Now Seneca was a Stoic, and the Stoic’s gave some of the most straightforward and practical advice, particularly Seneca, whose most famous surviving writings come in the form of letters to his younger friend Lucilius, where he provides guidance on how one should live.
In one letter where Seneca is discussing crowds and their potentially bad influences, he cites others, “One man means as much to me as a multitude, and a multitude only as much as one man.” He then says, “they asked him what was the object of all this study applied to an art that would reach but very few. He replied: “I am content with few, content with one, content with none at all.” The third saying is by Epicurus, “I write this not for the many, but for you; each of us is enough of an audience for the other.” Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are the person whom the many can understand? Your good qualities should face inwards. Farewell.”
Seneca touches on a number of items with these quotes, and with his final statement. First, that in any pursuit, we should be pursuing it for the right reasons, because we have something to say, some knowledge we want to learn, some character trait that we want to further develop. If that provides us with an audience that is small, or even no audience at all which appreciates our work, then so be it, our own development should be enough. In his statement on being pleased by applause from the many, he’s referring to his belief that those who are the most virtuous and knowledgeable couldn’t possibly be fully understood by the ignorant many. He ends the letter by imploring his friend to focus inwards on his own self-worth rather than on external validation.
He dives further into this sentiment in a later letter, first quoting from Epicurus again, “I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know, they do not approve, and what they approve, I do not know.” He then states, “For who that is pleased by virtue can please a crowd? It takes trickery to win popular approval; and you must make yourself like unto them; they will withhold their approval if they do not recognize you as one of themselves. However, what you think of yourself is much more to the point than what others think of you. The favor of ignoble men can be won only by ignoble means. Assuredly, it will make you prefer to please yourself rather than the populace, it will make you weight, and not merely count, men’s judgments, it will make you live without fear of gods or men, it will make you either overcome evils or end them. Otherwise, if I see you applauded by popular acclamation, if your entrance upon the scene is greeted by a roar of cheering and clapping, marks of distinction meant only for actors – if the whole state, even the women and children, sing your praises, how can I help pitying you? For I know what pathway leads to such popularity. Farewell”
Seneca again touches on the similar themes we’ve been discussing of the need to discount the approval of people you don’t know and who are likely ignorant of the things for which you’re seeking approval. So, how could you possibly be too pleased or saddened by their approval or disapproval. In today’s context, you can substitute applause and cheering for likes and followers as it relates to social media, or sales in terms of books, or arts.
Marcus Aurelius, another Stoic philosopher and a Roman Emperor, whose quote on reputation I cited at the beginning of our discussion, touches on these similar themes elsewhere in his meditations.
He says, “People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too. And those after them in turn. Until their memory, passed from one to another like a candle flame, gutters and goes out. But suppose that those who remembered you were immortal and your memory undying. What good would it do you? And I don’t just mean when you’re dead, but in your own lifetime. What use is praise, except to make your lifestyle a little more comfortable? You’re out of step – neglecting the gifts of nature to hang on someone’s words in the future.”
These meditations were directed at himself and he was blunt and to the point. Why spend so much of our lives consumed with what others think of us that we don’t pursue what it is that we are meant to pursue, that which brings us true joy and satisfaction.
In another meditation he states, “What is it in ourselves that we should prize? An audience clapping? No. No more than the clacking of their tongues. Which is all that public praise amounts to – a clacking of tongues. So we throw out other people’s recognition. What’s left for us to prize? I think it’s this: to do (and not do) what we were designed for. That’s the goal of all trades, all arts, and what each of them aims at: that the thing they create should do what it was designed to do. The nurseryman who cares for the vines, the horse trainer, the dog breeder – this is what they aim at. And teaching and education – what else are they trying to accomplish?
So that’s what we should prize. Hold on to that, and you won’t be tempted to aim at anything else. And if you can’t stop prizing a lot of other things? Then you’ll never be free – free, independent, imperturbable. Because you’ll always be envious and jealous, afraid that people might come and take it all away from you. Plotting against those who have them – those things you prize. People who need those things are bound to be a mess – and bound to take out their frustrations on the gods. Whereas to respect your own mind – to prize it – will leave you satisfied with your own self, well integrated into your community and in tune with the gods as well – embracing what they allot you, and what they ordain.”
He really gets into some of the themes of modern psychology here. First, like many of the prior philosophical texts we’ve discussed, he dismisses the importance of public praise, likening it to the clacking of tongues. But then he goes deeper and touches on why it’s important to cultivate the inner self rather than focusing so much on the external. He even seems to recognize the psychological consequences of focusing externally rather than internally, and how this can become pathological; leading to increased anxiety and depression as one can never seem to find satisfaction.
There are several other passages in meditations that seem to help him to better understand why he should not care about external praise.
“Look at who they really are, the people whose approval you long for, and what their minds are really like. Then you won’t blame the ones who make mistakes they can’t help, and you won’t feel a need for their approval. You will have seen the sources of both – their judgments and their actions.”
“You want praise from people who kick themselves every fifteen minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves?”
“What their minds are like. What they work at. What evokes their love or admiration. Imagine their souls stripped bare. And their vanity. To suppose that their disdain could harm anyone – or their praise help them.”
In these passages, he’s engaging in something called cognitive restructuring and reframing his desire for their approval in a way that helps him to put it aside and remind himself that he needs to focus inward.
As I mentioned, both Seneca and Marcus Aurelius were Stoics and one of the core tenets of Stoicism is this idea of the Dichotomy of Control, which says that things in life fall into two buckets, those that are within our control and those that are not. Other people’s opinions fall squarely in the bucket of things that are outside our control, so for us to focus on those opinions is to subject ourselves to these external and unpredictable forces, which is completely irrational, and you see this come through in their discussions on the topic.
Across these different philosophical schools, we can see that the single unifying answer to the problem of external validation is the prioritization of our own internal character and virtue over external acclaim. Whether it’s through the guidance of the Stoics, Plato, Aristotle, or others, the message is the same: the opinions of others are, at best fleeting, and many times based on ignorance. It is only those who know us and our character who can most effectively provide the validation that we need.
Modern psychology supports the sentiments of these ancient philosophers. And the strategies suggested by psychologists for overcoming a dependence on external validation center around building that strong inner sense of self.
Self-awareness and reflection is one, and involves recognizing triggers and causes, so that you can establish better protocols for handling yourself. For example, if you find yourself constantly checking how many likes your last post received, try setting boundaries for yourself in terms how often you’re allowed to look at your social media account and try to get yourself to a point where you don’t feel the “need” to look at the number of likes.
Cognitive restructuring involves challenging and trying to replace negative thought patterns. Asking questions like, “is this thought really true?” This is what Marcus Aurelius was doing when he wrote meditations to himself about how fickle the crowd is, and how little he should ultimately care about their approval. And how Seneca advised his friend. Each of the other philosophers also touch on this in their guidance that we should only care for the opinions of those who know us best and are experts in the field in which we are practicing, because only they can serve as useful judges.
Self-compassion suggests that we try to talk to ourselves as we would talk to a friend. This is an excellent way to provide yourself with some perspective. Think if a friend was feeling down because their last post didn’t garner much attention, or negative attention, or if their follower count was low relative to others. What would you say to them? Should they care? Or, should they instead recognize that they are valued by the people who actually know them? Recent neurological studies have shown that because of our brains’ neuroplasticity, deliberately practicing self-compassion can reshape the brain’s response patterns to the point that when we acknowledge our own achievements, our brains release the same neurochemicals that are triggered by external praise.
Another strategy is to focus on pursuing intrinsic goals, to ground your self-worth in personal values and passions. Shift your focus from the superficial metrics to your craft. Are you getting better at whatever it is you’re producing? Thinking about what it is that you’re putting out there that’s generating likes and followers and making sure that it is something that you are passionate about doing regardless of success in the eyes of others.
Why are you writing that book, or creating that online content, or giving that speech? Is it purely to get likes and followers and sales? If so, psychologists and philosophers alike would tell you that you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. Find something to write about or content to create that you’re passionate about and work to get better at it over time, then recognize and acknowledge yourself when you do. Praise and validation will come as you continue to get better. But even then, don’t worry about the praise from the ignorant masses, but from those who know you and your craft and weigh their opinions judiciously.
For example, if you’ve just decided to launch a new podcast about the intersection of modern psychology and ancient philosophy to address practical issues that we all face today, you should do it because it is meaningful to you to do so. I would love for this podcast to do well, but if it doesn’t, if it only reaches a few, or if it reaches none, then as Seneca suggested, that will be enough for me. At the end of the day, the value that I get from researching these ancient texts and modern studies makes me a better person. And that is enough.
Until next time, thank you for listening and make sure you subscribe.
