Your false modesty isn’t fooling anyone, according to a new study from researchers at Harvard and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Humblebragging — defined as “bragging masked by a complaint or humility” — actually makes people like you less than straight-up self-promotion, the research says.
The findings were published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Sezer and her team conducted a series of experiments to determine how common humblebragging is and how others perceive it.
They found that humblebragging is everywhere: Out of 646 people surveyed, 70% could recall a humblebrag they’d heard recently.
They found that regular bragging was better on both counts, because it at least comes off as genuine, Sezer says.
“I hope I don’t sound like I’m humblebragging when I talk about this research. »