| The article may have made this unclear, but just being happy about good news for you isn't self-promotion. The article quite clearly states that such self-promotion is what is often termed "humble bragging" (and in case the article might have misunderstood the study, the actual study itself uses very neutral language, like "sharing accomplishments"), which unfortunately is essentially just sharing any good news at all -- the examples given are new car, promotion, but the gist of the pretty limited study was sharing accomplishments. From which I have to say that nostrademons is somewhat on the mark. It is unfortunate that many people project their own negative feelings (jealousy, resentment) onto other people's statements, to the point where our lives have to be presented as a shit sandwich if we ever really want to share good news without "bragging" --- "Pretty surprised that a dumb jerk like me got a promotion. I'll probably end up getting myself fired.". It's easy enough to do, but ultimately it's usually lying to yourself and the audience just to pander to other people's insecurities and just adding noise to the whole world. And one of the best examples of this is the infamous Facebook baby updates: To people who care about the person, those are wonderful bits of news about something that is the one of most important events in the person you care abouts lives. To other people it's some asshole trying to lord over them just because they can procreate...I mean any asshole can go and have a kid and really do you need three pictures of a little shit and noise machine in a whole week? Who do they think they are... "Bragging" is in the eye of the beholder more often than not, and generally is a case where people have to start to increasingly filter facts about their lives lest they pass the "bragging" line in the sand of the listener. Many people love to hear your bad news, but they resent your good news. |
My comment above has been down"voted" yet is absolutely accurate -- this rather weak study has zero to do with someone saying they're a 10x programmer or the "best" PHP coder. It specifically asks about sharing accomplishments. Cue loads of baggage and justifications for people's entirely negative reactions.