ingratiation.

Seeking approval through pleasing behavior, praise, or excessive agreeableness.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• strategic ingratiation
• obvious ingratiation

On the page

His exaggerated compliments sounded like ingratiation.

Usage notes

Primary category: psychology / human behavior. Forms: Usually uncountable; no ordinary plural in this sense. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: character, interpretation. Commonness: moderately common.