Humblebragging makes people like you less than outright boasting, finds study

It comes across as insincere

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“Humblebragging” makes people dislike you more than outright boasting, according to researchers at Harvard and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Humblebragging, which is bragging that is unsubtly masked by humility, self-deprecation or complaint, doesn’t fool anyone, the new study found.

Is is a self-presentation strategy that the researchers say is very common but was understudied.

Lead researcher Ovul Sezer from the University of North Carolina says humblebragging can be expressed in one of two ways.

It can be a display of humility like “I’m so shocked my new book is a bestseller” or “Why do I always get asked to work on the most important assignment?”

Or a complaint, like: “I’ve got nothing to wear after losing so much weight” and “I hate that I look so young; even a 19-year-old hit on me!”

The researchers found that both approaches are less effective than standard bragging, as they “reduce liking, perceived competence, compliance with requests, and financial generosity.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, humblebragging was found to be less common than outright boasting.

The researchers also found that the main reasons people humblebrag are to provoke sympathy and impress others.

But this simply doesn’t happen.

In fact, the researchers concluded that humblebragging makes people seem insincere.

Sezer and her team surveyed 646 people, 70 per cent of whom could recall a humblebrag they’d recently heard.

Around 60 per cent of the humblebrags remembered by participants were of the complaint form.

The researchers measured how people who bragged and humblebragged were perceived and found that real bragging made people seem more likeable and competent because they were being genuine.

Humblebragging, on the other hand, made the speaker seem disingenuous.

So instead of beating around the bush, next time you have something to shout about, just do it honestly.

“If you want to announce something, go with the brag and at least own your self-promotion and reap the rewards of being sincere, rather than losing in all dimensions,” said Sezer.

Or, in an ideal world, get someone else to sing your praises for you: “If someone brags for you, that’s the best thing that can happen to you, because then you don’t seem like you’re bragging,” Sezer says.