Bragging in the right context: Impressions formed of self-promoters who create a context for their boasts

Abstract

Two studies examined the impression formed of self-promoters who actively work on creating the right context for their boasts. According to previous research, self-promotion in response to a question is perceived more positively. The current research claims that people commonly encourage their interactants to ask them a question pertaining to their success, and investigates the resulting impressions created. In Study 1 speakers were perceived more negatively when they raised the issue relevant to their self-promotion only when their interactant did not ask them a question concerning their success. Study 2 provided evidence regarding the cognitive process underlying the perception of the self-promoter. The results are discussed in terms of the correspondence bias, the mindlessness hypothesis, and models of reconstructive memory.

Keywords:

• Impression formation
• Impression management
• Self-promotion

Notes

¹ No significant main effect or interactions were revealed for gender (p > 0.05). However, an interaction approaching significance was revealed between gender and asking a question on the boastfulness index, F(1, 95) = 2.17, p = 0.15, η ² = 0.02. In line with previous research, which showed a preference of females for modest self-presentation (e.g., Brown, Uebelacker, & Heatherington, 1998) and polite language (e.g., Lakoff, 1975), women perceived the self-promoters who answered a question as less boastful than the self-promoters who did not answer a question, F(1, 74) = 10.85, p < 0.01, η ² = 0.13, while men did not show any difference in their evaluation of these two groups, F(1, 25) = 0.16, p > 0.1, η ² = 0.006.

² The demographic data were obtained from the first paper and relate to 63 participants who filled out this page. Two participants were dropped in the second phase of the experiment.

³ In order to support the argument regarding the violation of the norm of politeness, a pilot test was conducted with a sample from a population similar to that of the two main studies (n = 48). Participants were randomly assigned to the same four experimental conditions as in Studies 1 and 2 but the dependent variable this time concerned norm violation. The participants were asked to answer two questions on a 1–7 scale following the reading of the scenario: To what degree is what Avi is saying considered polite? To what extent does what Avi is saying fit or violate your expectation of this kind of conversation? These two questions formed an index with the larger numbers representing greater politeness (M = 4.84, SD = 1.28, Cronbach's α = 0.75). As expected, there was a significant difference in this politeness index between the four conditions, F(3, 44) = 2.90, p < 0.05, η ² = 0.17. A contrast analysis showed that the condition in which the self-promoter raised the issue and was not asked a question (M = 4.13, SD = 1.46) was rated as significantly less polite than the other conditions (friend raises and asks M = 5.40, SD = 0.91; friend raises no question M = 4.86, SD = 0.87; the self-promoter raises and the friend asks M = 5.25, SD = 1.32), t(44) = 2.76, p < 0.01.

⁴ The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for contributing some of the ideas for future research.