In the tough world of work we all need to do a little self-promotion now and then.
But there’s a tough balance to be struck between making our accomplishments known without coming across as unlikeable.
Now a study has found the answer: highlight your work-mates’ achievements at the same time as you shine a light on your own.
Researchers say this ‘dual promotion’ tactic is the perfect way to make sure we are perceived as competent while still radiating ‘warmth’.
‘We show that by simultaneously other-promoting – describing accomplishments and qualities of others – and self-promoting – describing one’s own accomplishments and qualities – individuals can project both warmth and competence,’ said the researchers.
In the tough world of work we all need to do a little self-promotion now and then. But there’s a tough balance to be struck between making our accomplishments known without coming across as unlikeable. Now a study has found the answer: highlight your work-mates’ achievements at the same time as you shine a light on your own (stock image)
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The team, from Vanderbilt University, George Mason University, and the University of Pennsylvania, distinguished dual-promotion from ingratiation, where a person says something positive about someone to their face or in their presence, which makes a good impression on the person receiving the praise.
Dual-promotion involves a person highlighting others’ achievements even when those other people aren’t around.
A person could use dual-promotion in, for example, a job interview, in which none of their colleagues were present.
‘With dual-promotion, the goal isn’t directly about improving relationships with the person being complimented, but rather about demonstrating that you care about this other person to a third party to demonstrate your own warmth and competence,’ said Dr Eric VanEpps, one of the authors of the study.
He said that most people don’t try dual-promotion when they’re in situations such as a job interview, though.
In a pilot study, they surveyed hiring managers, who said the majority of the candidates they interviewed (69.1 per cent) only self-promoted, while just 12.6 per cent engaged in dual-promotion.
‘It seems like people either don’t think of talking positively about others in the moment, or they’re worried that they would look worse by comparison,’ said Dr VanEpps, an associate professor of marketing at Vanderbilt University.
‘But we find over and over that it’s good to compliment your colleagues, especially – this is the ‘dual’ part of dual-promotion – alongside claiming credit for your own abilities and achievements.’
Researchers say this ‘dual promotion’ tactic is the perfect way to make sure we are perceived as competent while still radiating ‘warmth’ (stock image)
For the study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers completed seven experiments involving 1,488 participants.
Observers evaluated individuals engaged in dual-promotion compared to other ‘impression-management strategies’, across a range of contexts.
In one of the experiments, 200 hiring managers were asked to read about two colleagues who had completed a joint project and evaluated themselves.
The colleague who used dual-promotion wrote: ‘This project was successful because of our teamwork.
‘I took care of all the financial analysis, technical processes, and back-end design. Alex really impressed me with how he handled our client communications.
‘We both took charge of what we do best and it led to a great outcome.’
The other colleague, who used ‘self-promotion’, wrote: ‘This project was successful because of the efficient technical details.
‘My skill-set was a perfect fit for this project, so I took care of all the financial analysis, technical processes, and back-end design.
‘I took charge of what I do best and it led to a great outcome.’
The managers rated the two candidates virtually the same for competence, but the dual-promotion candidate was rated significantly higher for warmth, scoring 5.65, on average, on a seven-point scale, compared to 4.14 for the self-promotion candidate.
In addition, the managers held a more positive overall impression of the dual-promotion candidate, with a score of 5.83 on a seven-point scale, compared to the self-promotion candidate, who scored 4.67.
The research team said that previous studies have identified ‘so many behaviours’ that people do around self-promotion that, while successfully giving a good impression on one dimension end up harming how people think of them on another, that academics have coined the term the ‘self-promotion dilemma’.
They concluded: ‘In this work, we identify a novel approach to resolve the self-promotion dilemma, which we term “dual-promotion”.’
This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk
