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Self-Promoters Tend to Misjudge How Annoying They Are to Others
- Ma8ee 11y agoNo shit.
- Zezima 11y agoI often wonder if the demise of Facebook will be from an "empathy famine". There won't be anymore likes for starving children.
- pjscott 11y agoGood news: those don't require empathy, as such. All they need to thrive is people's desire to look empathetic without putting much effort into it. Click the upvote arrow to show compassion for starving children and puppies and the grand canyon. Retweet if you think that saving the whales is good.
- jacquesm 11y agoBusiness idea: make it so easy as to click a link to do a donation on the likes of facebook and so on, make a retweet of a certain tweet cost you some money.
- jcoffland 11y agoWhat I don't understand about human nature is that many of us take it as a personal affront when someone else does well. Shouldn't we be happy for them. Instead it makes us evaluate our own performance and leads to fear that we may not measure up. If only we could be better humans.
- tormeh 11y agoIt's because success is about status, and status is a zero-sum game.
- jacquesm 11y agoSuccess can be defined in many ways, some of those involve status but plenty do not. As soon as your definition of 'success' involves others then you're in the status domain but if your definition of success lets those other people out it becomes a much better driver and is no longer a zero-sum game because you determine what you believe to be your standard for success. For instance, I could define my measure for success as my ability to fix something and then go and do it. If I'm successful I win, if I'm not successful I still learn. It won't matter at all in the eyes of others (to me, at least) what the outcome is and the world as a whole will be better off, even if I'm unsuccessful.
- brianmcc 11y agoMakes me think there could be a little more to this. On the one hand, if a friend or colleague has something go well (personally, in business, whatever), I will be happy for them, and certainly wouldn't begrudge a twitter/facebook "yay me". Alternatively, if someone is constantly self-promoting, they'll quickly find themselves unfollowed. Seems to me general politeness rules apply: brag all the time, and people will think less of you. From the original title, I was expecting a study into the latter. Doesn't come across that way in the end.
- anigbrowl 11y agoThere's quite a difference between 'check out how successful I am' and 'check out how successful Someone Else is.' It's the same difference between someone trying to sell you a product or service, and someone observing that the product or service happens to be popular (but who has not interest in persuading you to spend money on it).
- ekianjo 11y ago> when someone else does well The issue is not about casual bragging, there's literally a mass of people out there who live to brag about whatever they do, wherever they go, whoever they are with. And we did not need a study to know that they were annoying.
- pasiaj 11y ago> who live to brag about whatever they do, wherever they go, whoever they are with Yeah, but why is that annoying? What is the core reason for reacting negatively to others' self-promotion. The feeling can be quite viceral, and that might suggest an evolutionary origin. Do we equate self-promotion with unfairness, or taking more than your own share? Or does it have to do with our tendency to define our own well being as a comparison to the apparent well being of others (as in: you got a promotion, so my status relative to the average of my social group got worse). The fact is, that self-promotion, at least on social networks, is mostly harmless and should not warrant negative emotions. But it does. And that is interesting.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- codingdave 11y agoI don't think that is human nature. I think that is a societal problem, and not even a universal one.
- dbbolton 11y agoSounds like a very weak study: >The researchers ran two online experiments to find evidence of the misperception. They asked some participants to describe a time they had bragged about themselves (self-promoters) and asked others to describe a time that they were on the receiving end of someone else’s bragging (recipients). >Taken together, the data from the two experiments indicated that self-promoters overestimate the extent to which people on the receiving end of their stories are likely to feel happy for them and proud of them. At the same time, they also seem to underestimate the extent to which recipients are likely to feel annoyed with them.
- sarreph 11y agoYeah, I was becoming genuinely interested in the study's results until I face-palmed at the methodology. Relying on 'remember a time when...' anecdotal evidence surely is not the best qualitative data they could come up with.
- dbbolton 11y agoReproducibility is already a huge issue in modern psychological research, and this type of presumptive analysis of self-reported anecdotes isn't helping.
- hyperpape 11y agoThis shows a misconception. Bad evidence may be perfectly reproducible. Being reproducible seems to mostly be an issue about statistics and experimental methodology, but your reproducible findings may not be good evidence for any deeper finding. Moreover, while I'm not impressed with the evidence of this study, finding out what people say when you ask them to remember X is a perfectly legitimate thing to collect data on, as long you recognize its limitations.
- dbbolton 11y agoWhat misconception, exactly? I understand that reproducibility is not the only factor in evaluating a study's weight, but it's still important, and still problematic in psychology. >Bad evidence may be perfectly reproducible. That was part of my point, namely that a weakly supported interpretation of subjective reports is probably a lot easier to reproduce than more empiric studies, but it does nothing to further the art. >finding out what people say when you ask them to remember X is a perfectly legitimate thing to collect data on, as long you recognize its limitations. I'm actually not arguing that subjective reports aren't legitimate data though. I think this study's methodology was also flawed due to the way it was structured. Group A was asked to describe an act of self-promotion of their choosing, and in a separate survey, Group B was asked to describe an instance of their choosing when someone had self-promoted to them. It's disjointed and lacking context. There is a distinct possibility that people in Group A chose to report a time when they felt that their bragging was socially acceptable and perhaps the people they bragged to were actually happy for them (e.g. health of their child). Likewise, I think the people in Group B were more likely to report a particularly obnoxious brag simply because that would be more memorable. A better (albeit admittedly more difficult to execute) study would involve investigating real-world and online instances of humblebragging, where there is direct relationship between promoter and recipient, and the subjects don't get to decide which experience they describe.
- marincounty 11y agoI have met some braggers in life who had low self esteem; I truly didn't mind their bragging. I just wanted the person to be happy. If you were poor growing up and you become wealthy--I understand a little bragging. Now, if you have high self esteam, high wealth, and they were braggarts; That's the combination I always found obnoxious. I would encourage these braggers--hoping they wouldn't change. I know it's wrong, but some of these people were sociopaths in suits. Most of them made their money the wrong way--taking advantage of someone, or exploiting a bad situation. Their wealth was legal, but morally made the wrong way. Why should I help a person like this?
- atmosx 11y ago> Now, if you have high self esteam, and high wealth, and they were braggarts; That almost never happens. People who combine all this feats usually never talk about themselves, usually others do. If they DO talk about themselves then there's clearly something missing (usually self-esteem).
- stan_rogers 11y agoThere are at least two named categories for people with that combination of traits: nouveau riche (people who've metaphorically won the lottery due to what they perceive to be their superior number-picking abilities) and trust fund babies (people who've had no input into the building of their wealth, but who belive it's something they deserve rather than just something they have). It's not rare at all.
- mdpopescu 11y agoI never understood this mentality. I am genuinely happy when I see someone on, say, "Who wants to be a millionaire" win big. It's exciting! Why would I begrudge that? On the other hand, I'm one of these braggarts who don't realize they (apparently) upset others so maybe I'm just weird.
- linhchi 11y agoI feel similar to you. Even if someone else is blatantly bragging, it has nothing to do with me. If i feel annoyed, it's either i have some weakness in my psyche or that person is standing in my way. If it's my weakness, i try to fix it via introspection. If the person is trying to mess with me, i'll go for the conflict.
- throwawayaway 11y agoWinning a tv show is not self promotion. Do you regularly win tv shows, and unwittingly upset others by doing so? Plain old begrudgery is quite different to the annoyance at people self promoting. Though I can see one trait being 'correlated' with the other.
- pekk 11y agoIf I win the lottery, and I tell people, that's not really bragging. It doesn't really mean I'm great or better than others, just that I had good fortune.
- FrankenPC 11y ago"Self-Promoters Tend to Misjudge How Annoying They Are to Others" Worlds most ironic title.
- mkagenius 11y agoHow should one respond properly as a recipient to a friend in such cases even if you are annoyed?
- ekianjo 11y agoUnfriend them ? That way you don't have the suffer the constant flow of bragging.
- nostrademons 11y agoI think there's more to it than this. The effect of your bragging will be different on different people: some will be annoyed at it, while others will be happy for you. People have freedom in who they associate with. I suspect that people (often subconsciously, sometimes consciously) use self-promotion as a way of filtering out the people who don't really like them anyway. If you let everybody know when something good happens to you, then everybody who's annoyed by good things happening to you will go away. Everybody left is genuinely happy for your success, because otherwise they would've stopped listening to you (or if they don't, it's their problem). So this is a way of culling your friends and acquaintances to optimize your social relationships.
- netcan 11y agoInteresting concept. I imagine there are a lot of very minor effects like this. One of the real mechanics behind woo ideas that people seem to be drawn to.
- pekk 11y agoThe article may have made this unclear, but just being happy about good news for you isn't self-promotion. Like if you just had a baby or whatever, and you share that news, that isn't self-promotion. Self-promotion is bragging to others about how awesome you are. It's narcissistic. "I'm a 10x developer." "You can't contradict me, I run big services in production at scale." "Everyone knows I'm the best PHP coder around." Okay... So if people are annoyed by your bragging, it doesn't mean they are envious people annoyed by good things happening to you. It might mean that they are annoyed at self-absorbed, arrogant or full of shit you are. These aren't really good traits. You say that being a self-promoter will "optimize your social relationships" because it filters out people who are simply annoyed that you have good news. I'd call people who simply hate others' mere good news just envious haters. But since self-promotion isn't just talking about good news but bragging, the people you are filtering out with self-promotion are not envious haters. They might just be realists who are into action over talk, not being anxious to take credit from others, not trying to look better than others and make team projects into competitions. That stuff generates conflict, it isn't nice, and the collapse of the reality distortion field can be painful. You probably want some of those people in your life, unless the whole point of your life is to service a fragile ego.
- tradermcnasty 11y agoI debunk studies like this in my seminars "how great I am, how great am I." Some people may complain about being annoyed, but they just don't understand, and so I need to keep promoting even more till they do. Have I told you how great I am?
- pekk 11y agoSounds like an outline for a TED talk.
- Flimm 11y agoSelf-promotion may be annoying, but that doesn't mean that it's unsuccessful, it may still change others' perception of one's skill and accomplishments. It's like commercial advertising, we all hate it most of the time, but it may still work.
- pekk 11y agoIt "works" and is "successful" to flat-out lie to people. At least in the short term. So what?
- Menge 11y agoI don't think the examination of either bragging or lying for individual benefits and group cost are just "so what." Both require a careful analysis of whether a greedy behavior will be adequately penalized if you are designing a social network to not immediately become facebook.
- marktangotango 11y agoIndeed, I work with one particularly memorable self aggrandizing jackass. My first development gig was at a large corp. We did quarterly disaster recovery excercises. Since I was single, and wanted to make a good impression I almost always volunteered, and always got the over night shift. Faster forward 3 years, and no one else on my team had been required to do one for over a year. When I noticed by boss didn't remember I'd been volunteering, and there was no benefit for me, I stopped. The next person required to perform disaster recovery was this older guy, he bitched and moaned at every oppurtunity, making sure everyone knew. Until one day in staff meeting I'd had enough, and said something about his whining, and how I'd done so many times and no one even remembered. My boss was really taken aback. That was the beginning of the end for me at that company, I'd already stayed too long. Note, that guy later committed suicide. He was a real miserable SOB.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- snowy 11y agoI've always loved the phrase "Self praise is no praise"
- volume 11y agoI wonder what Michael O'Church's response is to this? I bring this up more because I'm sure others accuse him of excessive self-promotion. I used to think so but after reading more of his stuff, I think he just really likes to write.