
Self-Promoters Tend to Misjudge How Annoying They Are to Others - kristiandupont
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/self-promoters-tend-to-misjudge-how-annoying-they-are-to-others.html#.VV_dj_UtOHY.twitter
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dbbolton
Sounds 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.

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lukevdp
The way these studies are reported do more harm than good. The studies prove
basically nothing but get reported in a way that people draw wide inferences
from them and think they are based in fact. Even the discussion in this thread
all just assumes that this study backs up what the title says.

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dbbolton
I agree. Even when scientific journalism _is_ responsible, there's a
concerning trend on social media, esp. reddit, where a study appears to be
judged by how interesting the headline is, and its rigor is seldom discussed
(e.g. an unreviewed paper by researchers working with limited data will likely
overshadow more thorough but less exciting studies).

But this isn't even responsible science journalism.

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nostrademons
I 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.

~~~
pekk
The 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.

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nostrademons
My point is that "envious", "self-absorbed", "arrogant", "hater", and "full of
shit" are not objective qualities that a person can intrinsically possess.
Rather, they are value judgments that one person labels another with.
"Nostrademons is an arrogant twat" is not an objective statement; it is a
subjective one, with an implicit "I think that..." prefixing it. "Pekk thinks
that nostrademons is an arrogant twat" is an objective statement (hopefully
false in this case, it's provided for example only).

For any given person's actions, there will be a cloud of value judgments
around that action. What's arrogant and obnoxious to one person may seem self-
confident and assertive to another. And in general, people are happier when
they don't hang around people they find obnoxious. So there's some degree of
self-selection going on. If taken too far, you may end up in the situation
where _nobody_ wants to hang around with you, and that's probably a good
reason to tone it down a little with the bragging. Similarly, if you find that
the only people who want to hang around you are folks who you don't want to
hang around, you may want to either change your actions to attract folks you
actually want to be with, or change your definition of who you want to be
around. But there's no intrinsic good or bad level of self-promotion, only the
level at which you personally are uncomfortable.

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TheOtherHobbes
>Rather, they are value judgments that one person labels another with.

Not quite. Reputation is collective, not individual. If _enough_ people agree
that someone is self-absorbed and arrogant, that person has a problem.

Now, it could be a problem with the collective, not the individual. Most
collectives have a reversion-to-the-mean feedback loop which punishes outliers
- with a possible get-out where they demonstrate exceptional effectiveness and
value.

But that doesn't mean there isn't an objective reputation consensus, with
objective consequences.

So the "That's just your opinion, man" defence isn't always going to work.

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oldmanjay
"Lots of people have the same opinion" and "objective truth" are not
interchangeable concepts.

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jcoffland
What 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.

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tormeh
It's because success is about status, and status is a zero-sum game.

~~~
jacquesm
Success 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.

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Flimm
Self-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.

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pekk
It "works" and is "successful" to flat-out lie to people. At least in the
short term. So what?

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Menge
I 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.

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marincounty
I 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?

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atmosx
> 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).

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stan_rogers
There 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.

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tradermcnasty
I 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
Sounds like an outline for a TED talk.

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FrankenPC
"Self-Promoters Tend to Misjudge How Annoying They Are to Others"

Worlds most ironic title.

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mdpopescu
I 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.

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throwawayaway
Winning 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.

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volume
I 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.

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snowy
I've always loved the phrase "Self praise is no praise"

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mkagenius
How should one respond properly as a recipient to a friend in such cases even
if you are annoyed?

~~~
ekianjo
Unfriend them ? That way you don't have the suffer the constant flow of
bragging.

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Zezima
I often wonder if the demise of Facebook will be from an "empathy famine".
There won't be anymore likes for starving children.

~~~
pjscott
Good 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
Business 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.

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Ma8ee
No shit.

