- Appearance compliments can make you feel good in the moment but they do tend to create a self consciousness in the receiver. Studies even found poorer performance in a Math test after receiving an appearance based compliment. ---- "Appearance compliments lead to appearance focus and body monitoring," says Rotem Kahalon, an assistant professor of social psychology at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel. Neuroscience research suggests that words referring to the body, including body-focused compliments, are processed more quickly and accurately in the brain, than those that are less related to the body, such as "friendly". One potential consequence is actually slowing down the complimentee's thinking. Kahalon coauthored a study of Israeli university students that found that both men and women who received appearance-based compliments subsequently did much worse on math tests. Even though these compliments can feel good, Kahalon interpreted this to suggest that they can create a distracting self-consciousness that undermines cognitive performance. "This monitoring of one's body is a cognitively depleting mental state," Kahalon says" - [Link](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240403-why-its-so-hard-for-some-people-to-accept-compliments)