HUMBLEBRAGGING JUST MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A FRAUD

I’m such a fool! When I was interviewing Eddie Izzard last week, I should have mentioned this new study about the dangers of humblebragging. He would have enjoyed riffing on it!

If you found that self-deprecating yet self-promoting assertion annoying, you have confirmed the study’s main conclusion. It reports humblebrags—ostensibly self-effacing statements that covertly aim to impress—seldom have the intended effect.

“The proliferation of humblebragging in social media, the workplace, and everyday life suggests that people believe it to be an effective self-promotion strategy,” write researchers Ovul Sezer of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, and Francesca Gino and Michael Norton of Harvard Business School. In fact, they report, it is “a uniquely ineffective form of self-praise.”

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