![]() And we use these same cognitive skills to try to understand why other people behave as they do.Įvidence that this relies on fairly sophisticated socio-cognitive abilities comes from studies of infants and toddlers. The ability to manage our own reputation is built upon our unique potential to see the world from another person’s perspective and to ask how they might update their beliefs about you in light of the behaviour they observe (or hear about from others). Instead, we attempt to look under the bonnet to ascribe thoughts, emotions, beliefs and desires to the person performing the behaviour. There is an unscientific explanation for all of this, but which nevertheless makes it easy to understand: humans are intuitive bullshit detectors. We say we like people who do good things, but then we make fun of them or try to exclude them from the group Quirks of our psychology can prompt a form of moral hypocrisy. Oscar Wilde put it best with his assertion that the “nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously – and have somebody find out”. Experiments with adults find that the perception of someone’s generosity is downgraded when they broadcast their good deeds on websites such as Facebook. Even children as young as eight years old take such self-serving claims with a pinch of salt, attaching a higher moral value to individuals who perform good deeds in private rather than bragging about them in public. Brazenly announcing one’s virtue typically invites scepticism rather than adulation. If such a statement prompts a wry smirk, you’re not alone. But more importantly it was genuine and I know it means a lot to the person in the long run. ![]() For example, take a look at the following (genuine) tweet: “I just did something very selfless. ![]() Another kind of humblebrag is the one where we tell people what a wonderful person we are, without coming right out and saying it.
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