Name: Bragging: Why People Brag? Is Bragging Good or bad?How about humble bragging? How to stop doing it?
Uploaded: 2021-06-03T20:12:40.000Z
Duration: 9 min
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Let me know if this sounds familiar: In a family gathering, your cousin asked you what

Adverbs of degree

You respond with enthusiasm, “ I just got a job offer as a Social Media Assistant.”

Little did you know, instead of being happy for you, he replies "Oh, Social Media Assistant,

I guess not everyone can get an engineer position at a Fortune 500 company as I did."

And he keeps on talking about how awesome He is for hours non-stop until everyone around

Then you start wondering, why people do that?

Hi, I am Shao, Welcome to what people also ask, where I search something seemingly obvious on Google

and share with you some of its PAAs, aka People Also Ask, which is a feature telling you what

other people are searching on Google that relates to your query.

We will talk about why people brag, is it okay to brag, and most importantly, how to

deal with your bragging relative in a family gathering.

So let's start with our first PAA: Why do people brag?

The answer is extracted from an article titled"The Psychology of Bragging" published by Counselling

Connection, which is the official blog of the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors,

which is an organization providing education in counseling.

According to this article, when people shared information about themselves, the same areas

of the brain activated as those that light up when we are eating food or having sex!

By the way, This article did not do a very good job revealing the source of this information

but I believe they are referring to research published in Proceedings of the National Academy

of Sciences in 2012 titled "Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding"

So here you go, people are bragging because it feels good, not surprising at all.

But I think the real question here is why they don't know they are annoying while they

Irene Scopelliti, a behavioral scientist, and her colleagues at the City University

of London exploring this issue in a 2015 research published in the journal Psychological Science

where they asked subjects to provide a profile about themselves.

Profile writers were asked to rate how interesting they believed their profiles would appear

Profile “raters” , on the other hand, then read the profiles and rated them on how interesting they were.

The findings showed that there was zero correlation between the profile providers' predictions

and how much the raters did like the profiles.

The profile writer significantly overpredicts how interesting their profiles are in the

So your annoying relatives likely do not know how boring and annoying they are when they

are bragging, they might even be thinking they are sharing something very interesting

Fortunately, this article also shared a lot of tips to stop them, I will put the link

in the description, but the following is my favorite: Boast about yourself, then self-correct,

as if suddenly realizing how bad it sounds.

Like: “Oh, excuse me; I guess I've been bragging, and it's probably better if we

don't do that; it only makes others feel bad”.

Braggers make people cringe, but you know what?

Those braggers are actually not as confident about themselves as they make it out to be.

Let's talk about our next PAA: Are people who brag a lot insecure?

The PAA answered by an article titled "4 Signs That Someone Is Insecure" published by Psychology

Today which is a media organization with a focus on psychology and human behavior.

In this article, the author Dr.Susan Whitbourne who is a Professor Emerita of Psychological

and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst points out that insecure people are

1.They are bragging to convince themselves that they really do have worth.

2.They try to make you feel insecure yourself.

So they can project their insecurities onto you.

For those who don't know, Psychological projection is a common defense mechanism that involves

projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to

or dealing with the unwanted feelings yourself.

Obviously, you don't want to be one of those annoying people, but is bragging always bad?

Let's talk about our next PAA: Is bragging good or bad?

Answered by Wall Street Journal's article titled "When Is It OK to Brag?"

This article cited research published in Social Psychology in 2016.

The results found Braggarts are viewed as more competent but less moral than people

who remain humble, except if their bragging is unsubstantiated.

In that case, they are seen as not only less competent but also immoral.

People who don't brag, on the other hand, are seen as moral but incompetent.

Ask yourself this question: 'In this situation do I care more about being seen as competent

And do I have evidence to back up what I am about to brag if I chose to brag?'

If you're on a job interview, and you have all the real certifications, portfolios, and

real projects you have done, then of course you should brag a little bit.

But if you're on a date and you know the person you are dating values kindness, it is better

And never brag about something that is not real, because you will end up being perceived

as not only immoral but also incompetent.

Okay, so there are situations that you should/can brag and situations you shouldn't brag.

Let's talk about how to do each of them with our next two PAA, let's start with the first

one: How can we overcome show-off nature?

The answer to this question is extracted from an article titled "Showing off?

Why we do it & how to stop" published by Nathawat Brothers which a website providing self-improvement

According to this article, there is one situation that we shouldn't brag: when we are bragging

And the best way to stop doing it is to be conscious about yourself's bragging behavior

by asking yourself two questions whenever you think you might start to brag : Question

Question 2: Does it help you present yourself at best.

If the answer to these questions is: I am doing it to make other people feel bad or

Okay, so the above is the advice when you think bragging might not be a good idea.

But as we have established, there are situations you should brag.

But how do you brag in a socially acceptable way?

The answer is extracted from an article titled "7 Ways To Talk About Your Accomplishments

Without Sounding Like A Braggart" published by Forbes written by Psychotherapist Amy Morin.