How Self-Promotion Can Backfire

Tuesday in social faux pas news comes a paper showing that when we try to make people like us, we often come across as braggy and annoying.

We often practice a little self-promotion when we’re trying to be impressive. Turns out, it doesn’t always come across the way we want it to. New research published in the journal Psychological Science shows that people frequently overestimate how much their self-promotion works in their favor and underestimate how much it achieves the opposite effect.

“These results are particularly important in the Internet age, when opportunities for self-promotion have proliferated via social networking. The effects may be exacerbated by the additional distance between people sharing information and their recipient, which can both reduce the empathy of the self-promoter and decrease the sharing of pleasure by the recipient,” said study author Irene Scopelliti, a lecturer in marketing at City University London in a statement.

To better understand the phenomena, researchers conducted a few experiments. In the first they asked people to describe in detail a time they bragged about themselves, what emotions they felt, and how they think the person listening to them felt. Then, another group of people were asked to describe a time when they listened to someone brag about themselves, as well as what emotions they felt and how they think the other person felt. The results showed that the people who did the bragging tended to think the people who were listening to them felt happier and more proud of them than they actually did. They were also likely to underestimate how annoying the listener thought they were.

A third part of the study, where the researches asked people to make a positive impression of themselves, showed that, indeed, people tended to brag about themselves to do it. That, too, backfired.

So next time you have something to brag about, consider your audience. Your true friends and family may still want to lend an ear, but that person you’re trying to impress may just find your self-promotion irritating rather than remarkable.