Why humblebragging is never a good idea, with Övül Sezer, PhD

We all want to be liked and respected. But sometimes, our intuitions about how to make a good impression lead us astray. Övül Sezer, PhD, talks about common mistakes, including humblebragging and hiding our accomplishments; whether the rules of making a good impression are different on social media; and how to “brag wisely” by sharing your journey rather than listing your accomplishments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:00Kim Mills?

  Everyone wants to be liked and respected. Whether you're meeting a new colleague, trying to impress your boss, setting up your profile on a dating app, or even just chatting with a neighbor, some part of your brain is probably thinking about how your words and actions are coming across. Sometimes our intuitions are correct, but sometimes they're not. Today, we're going to talk to a researcher who studies impression mismanagement, the mistakes we make when we're trying to make other people like us. So why do people so often misjudge what will make a good impression? What are some of the most common mistakes? If you want people to like and respect you, is it better to boast a little bit or stay quiet about your accomplishments? And what about social media?

• 1:44Kim Mills?

  Are the behaviors that make a good impression online the same ones that work in real life? Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.

• 2:05Kim Mills?

  My guest today is Dr. Oval Sezer, an assistant professor at Cornell University's S.C. Johnson School of Business. Her research focuses on the mistakes we make when we want to impress others and how we can better navigate our social world. Questions she's looked at include: How can we signal that we're both competent and likable? How can a person brag wisely? And how can we network less awkwardly? Her work has been published in top psychology and management journals and covered in media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Dr. Sezer, thank you for joining me today.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  Thank you so much, Kim. It's so great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

• 2:45Kim Mills?

  Now, you call your work "impression mismanagement." Can you start by telling us more about that? What is impression mismanagement? And conversely, what is impression management?

• 2:57Speaker 03

  This is a great question because any time I get asked, "What is impression mismanagement?", I start by explaining what actually is impression management. So that's a great start. So it's definitely the psychology of how we try to look good in front of others, the ways we try to shape how others perceive us, whether we want to come across as likable, warm, competent, high-status, trustworthy. So we all have these goals when we interact with others, whether it's a job interview, negotiation context, a presentation in front of clients, or trying to get a second date, or curating our perfect LinkedIn posts. All of these instances require some impression management, and we are all aware of it.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Sometimes it will be more conscious, sometimes it will be less conscious, but we're all aware of it because we have this goal. And impression mismanagement is when our intuitions go wrong, and sometimes we end up engaging in the wrong strategy and we end up shooting ourselves in the foot because the strategies that we try undermine us. It actually backfires. So that's the mismanagement part. And we all have these intuitions coming from somewhere because no one teaches us how to brag. No one teaches us how to do networking. These are the things we learn as we navigate life.

• 4:14Kim Mills?

  So what are some of the most common mistakes that people make when they're trying to get other people to like or respect them?

• 4:21Speaker 03

  I have a long list of strategies that I looked at so far, both, I mean, since my dissertation research and now as an assistant professor. So if I go on and on, you can stop me anytime. That's okay. Because I'm very passionate about this and I love, I love talking about this. So it all started with my dissertation work where we tried to understand what are some more sophisticated self-promotion strategies that people engage in. Because we all know bragging is not the most desirable thing, right? We all know that, even since very young age, we, we are aware, oh, I don't, I don't need to be too arrogant, I shouldn't be too arrogant because we want to be invited to parties and, you know, included in all the friend settings. So we don't want to brag too much.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  So that intuition is right. It's a universal value, modesty, humility, these are things that we all care about across cultures. But people do this interesting thing called humble bragging. I would like to welcome everybody to my world of social paranoia because now I'm going to notice my humble brags during this podcast. And maybe our audience will also start catching more humble brags as they listen to because that's exactly what happened to me when I first started investigating this phenomenon. So it's basically bragging masked by complaint or false humility. So if I say something like, oh my goodness, why do people hit on me even when I'm, you know, when I'm in my sweatpants, you know, oh, the Uber driver thought I'm 23, you know,

• 5:51Speaker 03

  doesn't that make sense, doesn't it? Or I can't believe I got this award, you know, thank you so much. I, you know, I, I can go on and on. Maybe, maybe I'll, I'll give some meta humble brags, you know, it's so hard to be invited to podcasts all the time, Kim, you know, I, I just, okay, I'll stop, I'll, I'll stop. But you can see how much. It's very common. It is absolutely very common. And of course, like some of the examples that I give right now. I mean, seemingly outrageous and funny, I do it on purpose. But even in, even in instances where it's not funny, like when people get the job interview questions, what's your biggest weakness? A lot of people end up saying, I'm a perfectionist. I work too hard, I'm too nice, I prioritize my friends and family.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  You know, people list all their great qualities as if they are weaknesses. So it happens, it happens all the time. And what we found was that even though people do it because they know bragging is bad and they think this is gonna provide that sweet spot, best of both worlds. So I'm gonna brag, but I'm gonna soften it. So I'm gonna both convey my great qualities and accomplishments, but I will soften it. I will, uh, you know, frame it as a complaint or a little, little modest thing. Uh, but what ends up happening is that it actually backfires. It's worse than straightforward bragging. And the reason is because it comes across as very insincere. It's a, you know, being sincere, being authentic

• 7:20Speaker 03

  is, uh, something that we value a lot in others. So when, when the person is trying to brag but trying to hide it, it's actually more offensive to the recipient. So we don't, we don't like it. So humble bragging is one of the common mistakes that happen. Uh, anytime I talk about this work, I used to get the question, oh, what if I don't share anything? What if I don't say anything? Now, the first risk about that in the world of, you know, I think we can say that our world is full of self-promotion right now with the existence of social media, you know? Uh, just, just one, one quick look at LinkedIn or Instagram is enough.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  You know, you would never, you would never feel lack of self-promotion around you. So if you don't share anything, there is the risk of missing out because now we live in a world where we need to, uh, emphasize our expertise. I don't mean to say we should brag all the time, but I just wanna say, hi, uh, not saying anything and staying quiet has its own risks. But if you have something good to share and if you don't share it, and we had this paper, we called it Hiding Success, uh, especially the people around you who are close to you, like maybe your close work friends, close friends and some family members, they do get offended a little bit this time because they think, oh, you don't think I'm gonna be happy for you? Like, that's offensive. Do you think I'm gonna be, you know, jealous of you?

• 8:43Speaker 03

  Uh, so there is that, sometimes it backfires, even though we have the good intentions of not, you know, not looking arrogant and not offending everybody. Sometimes it ends up being offensive because people think, oh, you are trying to regulate my emotional reaction to your success. I would just be happy for you. So that backfires as well, and that's a very common thing. Uh, and the reason why I say these are common strategies, because we did run lots of, I mean, first of all, they're common on social media and we did analyze that data. But they, we also, you know, survey people or run diary studies with people, where people report surveys every day at a certain time for us and, uh, or we ask people, you know, have you ever hidden success from somebody else?

• 9:25Speaker 03

  And the answers were very interesting because from, like, it starts very young. Like, oh, I used to get better grades than my, uh, you know, classmate in, in primary school, and I didn't say that, or I never shared the sta- uh, the name of my high sta- high, high status school name in, in my family, like, things like that. People try to navigate that all the time. So that's why I say these intuitions are very common, but they end up not working. And other things as well, like I study name dropping, you know, where you casually drop a name into conversation. Now, now I'm sure I'm gonna do that during this, during this interview as well. Uh, or I, I also study compliments or thank yous or apologies and, uh,

• 10:09Speaker 03

  there are also advice giving, advice taking, and there are things that we do wrong in this domain as well. For instance, people sometimes make their compliments backhanded, you know? If someone tells me, oh, your English is pretty good for an international. I would be like, what do you mean? My English is amazing.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Or, you know, or things, or if someone tells me you're funny for a woman, because, you know, I try to do stand-up comedy. Yeah, I try to do stand-up comedy as a hobby, so I would be like, no way! That's not necessarily a compliment. So things like that. It, it, there are, there are lots of different versions we can talk about.

• 10:42Kim Mills?

  How cognizant do you think people are of doing these things?

• 10:47Speaker 03

  When people are interacting with others, we are very aware when someone else does it. And we don't even care whether it's true or not. Someone can really maybe complaining about having lots of job offers and stuff like that in a genuine way. Maybe they really mean it. But for us, we would be like, oh, that's like a humble brag. You know, that's like kind of a weird thing to say. But in our experiments, anytime we put people positions and we give them impression management calls, like imagine I take you to my lab and I say, you're gonna talk with another person for five minutes, either through chat or face to face. And let's say I tell you, your goal is to impress the other person. You know, try to impress them. And I'm gonna ask them at the end of your interaction, how impressive you were. And based on how they rate you,

• 11:32Speaker 03

  I'm gonna give you bonus money. So I incentivize you to, for this goal, right? And you know, when people are in this position, they do, they do become less cognizant of these behaviors. Then we do, you know, brag, we do humble brag, we do these, these other behaviors. So I think when we are in the position of presenting ourselves, we somehow forget. I think another reason, by the way, that these mistakes still exist and it's so hard to learn over time, we never get in-time feedback. You know, no one, no one rolls their eyes in front of us or you know, there is no.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  Right? Or, yeah, or there is no dislike button on LinkedIn. You know, it's all.

• 12:16Kim Mills?

  Or in real life.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  Exactly. No one tells it to our face that it was kind of a weird thing to say. So you end up navigating always with your intuition.

• 12:27Kim Mills?

  Why do people make these mistakes? I mean, is it, I mean, you mentioned that we don't really learn how to make a first impression. I mean, should, is that something that should be taught somewhere in life?

• 12:40Speaker 03

  I think so. I think I, you know, I do, I do teach impression management classes in my leadership class. You know, when I teach both MBAs and undergrads. So I think there are definitely things we can learn. But your question about why do we even make these mistakes, even a bigger one? So some of it comes from we never learn because we don't get the feedback. I think some of it comes from the problem of having multiple audiences in the room. And with the way that internet works or social media works, it became even stronger. What I mean by multiple audiences is that, you know, having our family members or, you know, our parents and our boss and our team members in the same network makes it very hard.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  So here's what I mean by that. If I say, so, you know, for us, for academics, publishing papers is one measure of success, right? It's a great thing for us. We get very happy, even if only five people read our paper.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  We're still very, very happy because it's a contribution and we worked hard on it. And if I share it, let's say with my mom, there is no way she can, she will code it as bragging, right? She'll be like, oh, that's wonderful, right? Or same thing, if some, if we share things like this, like our promotion, our award with, with someone like a boss, they'll be proud of us. But if you share it with a peer who was aiming for maybe the same award, same promotion, then things change, right? Because we have the whole social comparison dynamic there. But right now, because everyone is available all the time in the same platform, we have this multiple audience issue. Everyone is in the same room. And how do I create that profile? Now, that's why sometimes you would see, you know, some people just do professional social media

• 14:24Speaker 03

  and personal social media separately. They try to create separate pages for, for that, which I totally understand why. Another reason why we make these mistakes, sometimes we try to regulate our own emotions. It feels good to brag that there is research actually by some wonderful colleagues. It feels good, like we feel good when we, we feel positive when we brag, even though there is that discomfort when we think of. Other people's interactions, there is definitely this pride is a very interesting self-conscious emotion. And you know, we like that. And sometimes we engage in these mistakes because we are trying to feel good about ourselves. And sometimes we just, it's a perspective-taking mistake.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Sometimes we just don't understand how it's going to come across to the other side. So there are these multiple different processes. Sometimes it's the emotional reason. Sometimes it's the, you know, other people are in the room and there are just so many different goals with any of these in relationships, right? The way that I interact with my best friend is not the same as I interact with my boss. But if they're all in my LinkedIn post, there's no, no, I need to choose one, one style. There's, you know, so things like that make the mistakes even more inevitable in a way.

• 15:37Kim Mills?

  We were talking a moment ago about the workplace and, you know, that cliche question about what's your greatest weakness. Another thing that that comes up in some workplaces is the three hundred sixty degree evaluation. Since you do this kind of work, I mean, how useful is that to people? Do they really learn anything from a three sixty when all is said and done?

• 15:59Speaker 03

  I think three sixty evaluations, I think, may work if people really believe that they're really anonymous and no one is, you know, getting the. So the status, status differences definitely do play a role because no one wants to be giving a negative feedback to their superior or their boss when their name or identity can be found out for sure. So people definitely have that concern. I think the way that people respond to three sixty feedback makes it either likely to work or not. And I'm going to give you the example of what we studied. This is also kind of related to impression management, so you'll, but it's also related to feedback-taking and authenticity. So we looked at how leaders react to three sixty feedback because they get feedback from people who work as your direct reports.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  And when people, especially when leaders get negative feedback, they have this bias. They want to address it very quickly. They say, here it is, I listened to you, I look at your feedback and I hear you and I incorporate this change immediately. But what we found is that when that change happens very. Very quickly and very immediately. Other people don't find it authentic. They they think, oh, you only change because I gave you that feedback. But it's not internalized, you know, you didn't think about it, you didn't reflect on it, you didn't uh internalize it. Uh but when it's done in a way that's a bit gradual and over time, then people really think you really pay attention. Right, so that's one. It's not necessarily an impression management mistake, but it's like a feedback mistake where it hurts your

• 17:27Speaker 03

  how how authentic you come across, so it ends up being an impression management mistake, right? Um so, you know, when we get feedback, we shouldn't be too quick to address it. We should still tell people, we hear them and we're we're working on it. But it's it should be a long term gradual change rather than very immediate, very quick, loud change. So sometimes this this gradual change is more uh effective in terms of coming across as an authentic uh leader. Uh so based on that, I can tell you that, you know, three sixty feedback may work, but it depends how we react to it. I don't know if I answer your question or this was very specific about the paper too, but as you know, I look for opportunities to brag, so thank you for

• 18:12Kim Mills?

  letting us know that this paper is coming out, okay?

• 18:15Speaker 03

  Exactly. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I thought it's a bit relevant with the authenticity angle too, so I wanted to share that.

• 18:23Kim Mills?

  I just want the listeners to know that we didn't set this up so that you could brag.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

• 18:27Kim Mills?

  I didn't know about your paper, yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, this was totally, totally authentic.

• 18:36Kim Mills?

  Let me ask you, uh going down an another lane here, have you found any gender or cultural differences in how people handle impression management or mismanagement, or how they respond to people who might be using some of the strategies to make a better impression?

• 18:52Speaker 03

  The answer is absolutely yes, because both gender and cultural differences determine our norms. And how we are perceived or whether we engage in this behavior or not really depends on the social norms around us. I mean, even even when we think of social media, you know, I'm always curious, how did it become what it is today? Now, I I recently went back to my Twitter feed and I wanted to find out what's the very first tweet I shared with the world and it was like, I like to cook. That was my, that was my first tweet.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Which probably doesn't make sense in today's, today's world, you know, why, why did I share that? But you, but you didn't say, "I'm a good cook." No, I just said I, because probably at the time, there wasn't that much of bragging norm. Or when, when Facebook first got into our lives or LinkedIn, it was a different thing and now it's a much different thing. Uh, so norms definitely determine how we behave in these platforms and in real life as well. And gender and cultural differences are absolutely key ingredients for social norms. So when it comes to gender, there's definitely the role theory, as, as researchers would call it, would explain. There's the expected roles from, uh, men and women.

• 20:07Speaker 03

  And women know that modesty is a more communal, more warmth-related norm, which is associated more female, uh, more with female characteristics. So women know that it, uh, it's gonna hurt them more and actually does hurt them more a little bit. Like bragging is not the same for a man versus for a woman. So women receive a little bit more backlash. Uh, and because of that, I think women, um, the direct self-promotion efforts for women are a little less. Uh, there's more indirect self-promotion efforts engaged by women. And it's a, it's a very tricky balance, of course, you know, because what do we, what I find in my dissertation work was also that even the domain of the bragging, topic of bragging matters too.

• 20:52Speaker 03

  You know, when we brag about leadership versus when we brag about cooking or things like that also, also, uh, changes the norms around this. So women receive more backlash when they, you know, when there's direct self-promotion. And because they are aware of it and it's because it's an expected behavior, modesty is expected more, uh, by women. You know, they refrain a little bit more, uh, from self-promotion. And cultural differences, uh, definitely determine how these efforts are perceived. Uh, especially when it comes to collectivistic cultures versus individualistic cultures. Like some cultures are more collectivistic, some cultures are more individualistic. Uh, we haven't published this, but I did get a chance when we, uh, I did run only one study.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  So I'm gonna give this with, with, uh, you know, that. But even in that one, uh, one experiment, when we ran the experiment with US participants and also Japan, uh, participants from Japan, you know, where Japanese culture is much more collectivistic than. US culture. Humble bragging there wasn't that bad because humility is much more of a value there. Right? People definitely deflect bragging in a genuine way because no one wants to say, I, me, I did this, I'm the best. Like, that's very forbidden in those cultures. So we did find that difference in that one study I could run. So there's definitely cross-cultural differences there.

• 22:16Kim Mills?

  We're going to take a short break. When we return, I'll talk to Dr. Sesar about how to balance being liked and being respected by others.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 22:56Speaker 04

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• 23:26Kim Mills?

  There's a term that has come into common usage in the US in, I don't know, the last few years, mansplaining. And I'm just wondering if that is a reflection of the fact that men do tend to sort of take over and tell you what they know? And is that a form of, of impression mismanagement?

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a great question, too. No, we did, we did have some studies around this phenomenon, you know, because especially this term mansplaining was very, it's still common, but it had a, it had its very popular day a few years, a few years ago, maybe. It is true that a lot of people do say they experience mansplaining, especially in the workplace. What we find is that it's usually status explaining, though. You know, like when there's high status positions are occupied by mostly men at this point in our lives, everywhere in the world. And high status gives that drive to, let me explain things to you. And sometimes again, but. I mean, this was just survey-based data, so people's self-report experiences.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  But people do find that not all mansplaining are equal, meaning that sometimes it backfires and it's an example of impression mismanagement because it's a bit condescending. You know, some people, you know, like if someone explains to me how to, I don't know, how to watch sports, just because, you know, I'm a woman, things like that would be an example of that, for instance. Um, so, so yeah, even sometimes advice giving that if happens, if it happens in the form of mansplaining or status explaining. So sometimes it can be also woman's planning, I guess, if the high-status agent is a woman. Uh, it does backfire because even, uh, it does backfire because of two things. Sometimes it can be based on gender stereotypes, which are of course offensive.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  You know, when I said the sports example, I know, I'm a huge soccer fan. I know soccer rules more than anybody else. And, and that's definitely offensive, but sometimes it just happens because of status differences and people just don't know where to put you, especially if you're on the younger end. That's why sometimes even men receive mansplaining too. Because if they are young and if they seem like they don't know what they're doing, even though they would know, but just based on the perceived level of their status and their age. Uh, and then you get this unsolicited advice that may end up being condescending, regardless of what the intention of the explainer was. So it can definitely be a form of impression mismanagement there.

• 25:52Kim Mills?

  Can people use techniques to sort of attenuate the bad reaction that they might be getting? So for example, when you kind of say to people, hey, I, I don't, how much do you know about sports? I mean, because I know a lot about this particular sport. And so sort of opening the door to letting the other person know or say to you, yeah, I'm very familiar, say, with, with soccer. Then you can like approach each other more on an equal level. Does that help?

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Absolutely. In fact, you know, I'm a big fan of these pre-explanations. That's why probably in any social interaction that I'm in, I give this long introductions to any topic because probably I'm very aware of this. As I said, I've been a social paranoia as someone who studies these things. I think it's always a good idea to give some more information about context or yourself, or ask the other person. We also know that asking questions is a great strategy because people love talking about themselves. So you know, if you ask questions, people always love it. It also signals that you're curious about them. If you share and you ask a question, you're curious about them and curiosity is one of the things that we can all aim to induce in others, right?

• 27:00Speaker 03

  That's in fact for bragging, you know, the best strategy is to find a wink person for our brags. So if someone brags on behalf of us, when we are not present, that's the best thing that can happen. So we let's let's make a pact, Kim, from now on. I'm gonna brag about you.

• 27:17Speaker 03

  Please brag about me and we have this our friendly friendly brag loop going on.

• 27:21Kim Mills?

  All right, that's a deal.

• 27:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, and and I think the reason why it works very well because number one, you're not there, so there's no ulterior motive, no one, no one questions the legitimacy of this brag. Number two, you are curious about the person. Like if you hear about someone from another person, you're like, oh, let me check. Do they have Google, you know, can I Google them? Are they on Instagram, you know, like what's what's the work that they do? Do they have like a websites where I can learn about their work? So curiosity is a very important piece. So asking questions or finding someone else to brag for us are great strategies. And going back to your question, that's why, you know, if you're in a situation where our level is not necessarily well known by the other person or we don't know their knowledge level.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  If we can ask questions, we can share where we're coming from. And that would stop all of the misunderstanding around advice giving or advice taking and and I I'll say a few things about in general how it's a great idea. I said both asking questions, but also sharing our journey too, which is another research that we did. So I'm all a fan of these explanations and these extra conversations so that there's no mismanagement or misunderstanding.

• 28:33Kim Mills?

  Another thing that you've written about is how tough it is to balance trying to be liked and trying to be respected. So can you talk about that? I mean, how do you pull off that balancing act?

• 28:43Speaker 03

  It's probably the question that all impression management researchers or social cognition, social perception researchers around the world think about every day, all the time. Because it's called the self-promotion paradox. So what we know from social perception literature is that when we meet with someone, when we evaluate others, there are these two universal dimensions that we care about: warmth and competence. So when I meet with someone, I care about whether they are friendly, warm, nice. Do I want to hang out with them? And I also care about are they smart, capable, competent? Do I want to work with them? Or can I interact with them in that context?

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Now, the tricky thing, the self-promotion paradox, comes from the strategies that take us to high warmth or high likability. Don't make us look highly competent. So I'm going to give examples. If we smile all the time, if we agree all the time, if you're very conforming, if you're getting gifts to other people, giving compliments to other people, these things would make us be liked. Everyone would like us. But no one would necessarily think, oh, my God, look at that person. They got a PhD. They're a very interesting person who did all of these accomplishments in their career life. And vice versa. If I'm competent, if I convey my expertise,

• 30:10Speaker 03

  if I just talk about my accomplishments, then people wouldn't like me. That's called the self-promotion paradox. So it's very hard to get to both because there is that trade-off. The warmer we are, there's a chance that we may look less competent. And the more competent and smart and high-status and respectable we look, we may look more distant and less likable and less warm. Some strategies work. One is definitely humor when it's done well. So if you can incorporate humor in a smart way, it's one of these rare strategies that signal both how smart you are, but also it makes us very likable. Another thing that I referred to in my previous answer was when we talk about our journeys,

• 30:52Speaker 03

  we still convey a lot of competence and we don't lose the warmth. People still like us more and find us relatable. What do I mean by that when I say journey? Like we even have a definition of the journey too. And I I remember I took some notes. And I so we defined it as a long and often difficult process of going from one point to another. And basically, when you share your journey, and we all had journeys, right? We all had long and difficult path for something. And basically, you need it. It reflects our determination to learn how we learn the new skill and how we how we grow as a person. And I'm going to give you an example by that, like.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  And the tricky thing here, when we are in a job interview, when we are in a work happy hour, when we are in a reception where we try to network with people. We are because we have limited time, we usually just list our accomplishments. So I did this, I did that. And it seems like a journey too, but it's not really because we only list our outcomes, our accomplishments. But if you instead of saying, for instance, oh, I graduated from this school. If I tell people, oh, I actually learned English, started learning English at the age of fifteen. And I came to US as a college student. Now there is a whole different story there, right? There is a whole. And I'm sure all of us have lots of different things like that. So if you share, instead of just focusing on the outcome or accomplishment, if you can say just a couple more sentences.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  So, you know, I had to work extra hours to get this position, you know, you know, or. Or I learned this language, or I learned this new skill, or or I navigated all of that when I had my kid. Or like all of these things give much more personal information and journey and how you made sense of your growth and development. And that's way more interesting for the other party to listen to. So the sharing journey information is another strategy that help us being both likeable and respectable. And get high ratings on both warmth and competence. Oh, gratitude is a very good one, I think. Although, I mean, with LinkedIn posts gratitude, sometimes people also question the.

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Eh sincerity of gratitude posts as well, which is some some research we are doing right now. Oh, yeah. But if if gratitude is eh has eh clear targets, like if you like instead of ju- just saying, I'm grateful, I got this job. If you say, I'm so grateful to my teammates, my mentors, like if there are actual people that you're grateful to. Eh people love, people love gratitude, even if you brag. So that's another strategy that makes the bragging a little warmer. In general, I would I would recommend eh sharing brag attempts or accomplishments with positive emotion is very effective.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  Like, people love it when we say, I'm really so excited. No, I'm genuinely over the moon eh for this for this graduation, something like that. Eh and one key thing I wanna say, this is more about emotion research, not necessarily impression management research, but I. As as an impression management researcher, I'm very interested in the study of pride, as I've mentioned, it's a very interesting self-conscious emotion. So there are the researchers eh pride researchers distinguish two distinct types of pride. One is hubristic pride, the other is authentic pride. So hubristic pride is all about, I'm superior, I'm great. Eh well, like, I'm just so great. Like, you just get that vibe from from eh hubristic pride. Whereas authentic pride is really all about, you know, I worked so hard and finally I get this.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  And and people really respond to that in a very positive way. So anytime we feel that emotion pride, that sweet pride. Eh if you sort of check ourselves and say, you know, I'm really being authentic about this, do I really share all the background, all the hard work? All the, you know, sleepless nights or extra hard work or extra hardship that I had to overcome to achieve this. Then people respond to it in a more eh positive way and you don't necessarily have the trade off between warmth and confidence. So these are just some of the strategies there.

• 34:53Kim Mills?

  Are the rules different on social media? Because I mean, the half of what I see on there is people saying, "Oh, I'm in Budapest today and tomorrow I'm going to be in Croatia." And/or "Here's this beautiful meal that we had last night, and you had to eat home and you probably ate leftovers." You know, I mean, that's the sense that I get from reading a lot of the things that people I know post. And these are my friends. It's not that I dislike them because they're showing me that they're doing something fabulous. But are the rules different for social media? And are people's reactions different?

• 35:25Speaker 03

  I mean, that's a great question because we all know social media is bragging Olympics.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  You know, very like, and it's very interesting. All of them became that way. You know, at first, maybe Instagram seemed like a very, everyone is having this amazing life, filled with amazing meals, amazing trips, amazing hobbies. Sometimes, you know, when I see people's hobbies again, I'm very happy for them, but I always think, "How did they find the time?" You know? I barely, I barely, you know, survive with just like a few things I need to do given in a day. And LinkedIn has become that too. And LinkedIn also became, people share lots of things with their photos and about their personal lives too. I don't know about your LinkedIn, but I started to see a lot of sort of personal milestones. Maybe people don't put like Paris trip to their LinkedIn, but they still do share a lot of personal life updates in a, in a good way.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  I think social media has changed the game in a bit, that it made it very visible and pervasive. So it changed the norms. I think we think it's more okay to brag now. So probably, that's why when I find my first tweet saying I like to cook, it seems like,

• 36:34Speaker 03

  seems very naive and kind of missing the point to me. The other thing is, of course, in general, the rules, same rules apply, like gratitude is great if it's done in a smart way and real way, rather than if you just say, "I'm so humbled to be here." People don't think you're necessarily humble, right? Like, people are actually a little aversive to some words, but in general gratitude, positive emotions and directness, like being a little more direct, like, you know, like hundreds of hours of work and finally here I am. Something like that would be way more effective than humble bragging, saying, "Oh, I don't even know. I don't even know that my students selected me for, I can't believe, you know?"

• 37:17Speaker 03

  I'm getting this teaching award again.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  So so generally, the rules are the same. In terms of people who never share things, who share only the accomplishments, I think that also backfires a little bit. I think the social media piece is very exciting for us researchers because now things are really changing, right? We see also the behavior differences between different generations. If you ever look at TikTok, you know, the norms there are even more different because it's a more video-based app and and the younger generations, the Gen Z members make make videos that are almost like, they even make fun of, I don't know if you heard of this, but they even make fun of the millennial pause, which is this idea that when you put the camera, I think older generations, starting with millennials,

• 38:06Speaker 03

  we do this thing where the camera starts, we do have this slight pause where you just pause and look at the camera and you're ready. Whereas for the Gen Z members, you know, they they start there, they start talking immediately when they put on makeup or like cook and it's it's like a normal thing. Yeah. You know, oh, oh, here is here's a day, there's a day at at Harvard University as a freshman student, you know, what do I do here? Because for them, they are much more concerned about the feeling of cringe, so they don't even want to look like they are trying. So that's the term that we're learning from social media as well. So generally, some rules are the same, meaning that you got to be direct, you got to be, you got to show gratitude

• 38:50Speaker 03

  and hopefully talk about your authentic pride and journey, how you got there. You know, your hard work and and how you grow as a social person. So general rules of bragging work, but there are different norms because there are different generations coming along and they change the norms and they, you know, you don't want to seem like you're trying too hard. That's why even the number of words you put on your status on social media, some people argue that that may reveal your age, you know, if you write this long paragraph, you are like an older millennial, whereas if you sort of, if you sort of say just one sentence as if you're not trying, that's much more of a younger younger generation person's attempt to attempt to self-promote. So I find it fascinating that some rules are the same, but some rules are definitely changing there.

• 39:35Kim Mills?

  So I have to ask, because you mentioned it, and of course, it's elsewhere in your bio. In addition to your work as a researcher and a professor, you do stand-up comedy. Does your research on impression management help you in your comedy? I mean, do you work it into your routine?

• 39:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. It's impossible not to. Well, first of all, in general, because I studied organizational behavior in grad school, so I'm very interested in behavioral science and what mistakes people make and how can we fix that. And in my research, I focused specifically on impression management mistakes. Comedy is also all about mistakes. If you go onstage and talk about how great things are, it's not funny. It has to be... Mark Twain has this famous quote, "There's no humor in heaven." Because everything is so great there. So in a way, comedy is impression management in real time, because you've got to talk about these mistakes. But also, to be funny,

• 40:36Speaker 03

  you've got to manage the impressions too, because there is a timing. You've got to be vulnerable. And self-deprecation usually works as a comedian. And self-deprecation is an interesting impression management strategy as well, where you can cultivate a lot of warmth and likability points. My research makes me very meta-aware of these dynamics. So I always experiment with impression management onstage, I should say. And these are two favorite topics of mine. I love talking about impression management and studying it. And I love comedy. And I love thinking about what makes something funny and relatable. And sometimes I run experiments. Sometimes I make a joke. And if people laugh, I know it's real. And if my data works, I know it's real.

• 41:18Kim Mills?

  Well, Dr. Sazza, I want to thank you for joining me today. You've made a great impression.

• 41:22Speaker 03

  Thank you so much. You too. Thanks so much. We are a great team.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  Such a pleasure to join. Thanks a lot.

• 41:29Kim Mills?

  Thank you.

• 41:31Kim Mills?

  You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at www.speakingofpsychology.org, or on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you've heard, please subscribe and leave a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at [email protected].

• 41:54Kim Mills?

  Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lee Weinermin. Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills.

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