This psychology-based insight explains how remote work can magnify people-pleasing tendencies.
The Surprising Link Between Remote Work And Your Approval-Seeking Habits
Psychology shows that remote work often intensifies approval-seeking behaviors. Learn to spot these patterns and protect your well-being.
By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | Last Updated:
Remote work often promises freedom, flexible schedules, fewer interruptions and more autonomy over how the workday unfolds. And for many people, it delivers exactly that. But for others, working remotely silently intensifies a different pattern. A growing number of professionals report feeling constantly "on," overly responsive and anxious about being perceived as "difficult" or disengaged.
Research suggests this counterintuitive effect is not a coincidence. Remote work environments can subtly expose and amplify people-pleasing tendencies that are often easier to manage in traditional office settings.
(Take my science-inspired Workaholic Style Quiz to know what your work habits reveal about you.)
People-pleasing, to be clear, is not simply being nice or cooperative to the ones around you. In psychological terms, it is a pattern of prioritizing others' approval over one's own needs, often driven by fear of rejection or conflict. People-pleasing behaviors have previously been linked to high agreeableness, attachment anxiety and elevated sensitivity to social evaluation.
Studies on self-silencing show that individuals who suppress their needs to maintain harmony experience higher stress and lower well-being over time. While these patterns can exist in any workplace, remote work changes the social cues that normally regulate them.
Remote Work Changes The Social Equation
In a physical office, social norms provide natural boundaries. People leave the building at a certain hour, and one's availability is visible. Informal cues signal when someone is busy, off duty or unavailable. Remote work, however, removes many of those signals.
And when role boundaries are unclear, individuals rely more heavily on internal beliefs to guide behavior. For people with people-pleasing tendencies, this often means overcompensating. Without clear external limits, they may feel pressure to prove their capacity for productivity, responsiveness and commitment through constant availability.
One of the most common drivers of people-pleasing in remote work is visibility anxiety. This is the fear that if others cannot see you working, they will assume you are not contributing enough.
According to a 2025 study from Frontiers in Psychology on impression management, individuals high in approval motivation engage in more compensatory behaviors when evaluation criteria are ambiguous.
Remote work environments often lack clear metrics for effort versus output, which can heighten this anxiety. As a result, people-pleasers may respond to messages instantly, volunteer for extra tasks or avoid setting boundaries to signal dedication.
Furthermore, remote work relies heavily on written communication. Emails, chat platforms and project management tools create a constant stream of requests that arrive without context.
People are more likely to say "yes" to requests when they are immediate, direct and difficult to ignore, and digital messages meet all three criteria. There is no facial expression to soften a refusal and no natural pause to consider a response. As a result, for people-pleasers, the default becomes accommodation. Saying "no" feels riskier when tone and intention can be misinterpreted.
Another unexpected factor that affects our workplace behavior is our attachment style, particularly under conditions of uncertainty.
Individuals with anxious attachment tend to seek reassurance through responsiveness and overinvolvement. Remote work can intensify this pattern because feedback is often delayed or absent in that arrangement.
Without regular reassurance, people-pleasers may work harder to earn approval, even when it costs them rest and focus. This can look like over-explaining decisions, apologizing unnecessarily, or checking in excessively to confirm alignment.
This is why it's important to psychologically separate your personal and professional roles. When these boundaries are weak, stress is bound to increase.
Remote work blurs boundaries between professional and personal life, making it harder to disengage. People-pleasers already struggle with boundary-setting, and remote work removes external stop gaps that might otherwise protect them.
As a result, logging off can feel like letting someone down, and delayed responses can feel like rejection. Over time, this leads to emotional exhaustion rather than increased productivity.
Why High Performers Might Struggle More With Remote Work
Interestingly, people-pleasing in remote work often affects high performers the most.
Research from Personality and Individual Differences on conscientiousness and overcommitment shows that individuals who care deeply about doing well are more likely to internalize unrealistic expectations. When combined with people-pleasing tendencies, this can create a cycle of overwork and under-recognition. Because people-pleasers rarely voice overload, their extra labor becomes invisible. This reinforces the belief that they must keep giving more to remain valued.
People-pleasing behaviors have repeatedly been linked to increased stress, anxiety and burnout. Emotional labor, especially when unacknowledged, taxes cognitive and emotional resources.
Remote work can intensify emotional labor by pressurizing individuals to manage tone, availability and responsiveness without feedback. Over time, this can lead to depersonalization and reduced motivation. These outcomes are not signs of weakness; they are predictable responses to sustained self-suppression.
Reframing Remote Work Through Awareness
The first step in changing people-pleasing while tendencies is awareness, not self-criticism. Naming a pattern reduces its automaticity. When individuals recognize that their behaviors are driven by fear rather than necessity, they regain choice.
Effective strategies include setting explicit response windows, clarifying expectations with managers and practicing assertive communication. Learning to express needs respectfully improves both performance and well-being.
Another important psychological shift is redefining value. We know that outcomes matter more than constant availability at work. Yet people-pleasers often equate worth with responsiveness. Remote work exposes this belief by stripping away performative busyness. What remains is the question of whether one feels allowed to rest without guilt.
The larger takeaway here isn't that remote work naturally leads to people-pleasing tendencies. It simply removes the structures that kept them hidden. By exposing these patterns, remote work offers an opportunity for growth.
When individuals learn to set limits without fear, they not only protect their mental health but also model healthier norms for others. In that sense, the discomfort many people feel is not a failure of remote work. It is an invitation to unlearn the belief that being valued requires constant accommodation.
Take my science-inspired Career DNA Test to discover what your work "archetype" is.
Most people think gaslighting cannot happen in a remote work arrangement. Take the research-informed Gaslighting at Workplace Questionnaire to know if you're being manipulated in your WFH.