r/technology • u/Choobeen • 9h ago

Society Research shows the 'compliment sandwich' is no longer effective - University of Western Ontario

https://phys.org/news/2025-08-compliment-sandwich-longer-effective.html
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u/BuriedStPatrick 5h ago

I played in a band once where the drummer would just be brutally honest. I had written a riff I thought was okay and he'd just say "I think it sucks" or something to that effect.

In the beginning it does feel completely uncalled for. But later in life I've come to appreciate that kind of honesty. I've never had someone say it like that since then. Not saying this is an appropriate tone to deliver feedback, and it's not super constructive. But I do miss the clarity it offered.

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u/Waterfish3333 1h ago

To me there’s two things here. First is that the person giving the feedback needs to be someone I at least partially respect and I feel like respects me and my work. Not necessarily a friendship type relationship but certainly a working, respectful relationship.

Second, that person also better be able to take brutal criticism too. I’ve met people that are cool with just saying “that thing sucks man”, but will lose their minds if you say it to them. I immediately lose all respect for anybody who can dish it out but not take it.

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u/JacoBoated 1h ago

I only ever just wanna be told why. I’m cool with whatever I did being dogshit just tell me why it’s dogshit

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u/Pluton_Korb 33m ago

I don't know. If someone says it like that, they need to be able to articulate why. If I had been in your position, I would have just shrugged and carried on. If he had explained why it sucked then I would have been much more open to criticism.

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u/ViennettaLurker 11m ago

The core question for me though is, was he right? Or perhaps, was it useful?

To me, a lot of this simply comes down to getting useful feedback or not. "Compliment sandwich" can be helpful, if the underlying message is "I like elements A and C, but not element B". It gives people a context of, "what Im looking at is not all bad, I would just change this one thing" instead of "you've lost the plot and should start over from the beginning".

The key word to me in your story is 'clarity'. Its understandable how that could be a noticeably useful quality of feedback. But you don't want the tail to wag the dog. Most good feedback is clear, but not all clear feedback is good. And good feedback can be hard to come by because lots of good things are hard to come by.