Page 385 - The Social Animal

Liking, Loving, and Interpersonal Sensitivity 367

able, highly competent people. But as we continue to learn in this
chapter, factors that determine interpersonal attraction are often
complex; they cannot always be spelled out in simple terms. As for
competence, there is a great deal of apparently paradoxical evidence
in the research literature demonstrating that, in problem-solving
groups, the participants who are considered the most competent and
to have the best ideas tend not to be the ones who are best liked. 23
How can we explain this paradox? One possibility is that, although
we like to be around competent people, a person who has a great deal
of ability may make us uncomfortable. That person may seem unap-
proachable, distant, superhuman—and make us look bad by compar-
ison. If this were true, we might like the person more were he or she
to show some evidence of fallibility. For example, if Sam were a bril-
liant mathematician, as well as a great basketball player and a fastid-
ious dresser, I might like him better if, every once in a while, he made
a mistake adding up a list of numbers, blew an easy lay-up, or ap-
peared in public with a gravy stain on his tie.
Almost 50 years ago, I was speculating about this phenomenon
when I chanced upon some startling data from a Gallup poll:
When John F. Kennedy was president, his personal popularity ac-
tually increased immediately after his abortive attempt to invade
Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. This was startling in view of the
fact that this attempted invasion was such a phenomenal blunder
that it was immediately dubbed, and is still commonly known as,
“the Bay of Pigs fiasco.” What can we make of it? This was a situ-
ation in which a president committed one of our country’s greatest
blunders (up until that time, that is), and miraculously, people came
to like him more for it. Why? One possibility is that Kennedy may
have been “too perfect.” What does that mean? How can a person
be too perfect?
In 1961, John F. Kennedy stood very high in personal popular-
ity. He was a character of almost storybook proportions. Indeed, his
regime was referred to as Camelot. Kennedy was young, handsome,
bright, witty, charming, and athletic. He was a voracious reader, the
author of a best-seller, a master political strategist, a war hero, and
an uncomplaining endurer of physical pain. He was married to a tal-
ented and beautiful woman who spoke several foreign languages,
had two cute kids (one boy and one girl), and was part of a highly
successful, close-knit family. Some evidence of fallibility, like being