Bragging

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing how to brag. Peter, take us, off we go.

Speaker B: 00:00:29

Yeah, so this is it. So what sparked this set of thoughts in me was an influencer, Katie Lee Bailey from Bradford. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Bragford. Bragford, yeah, very good. Oh dear, that was bad. So she's a successful young lady. Yes. How do we know this? But yeah, go on. Doing the TikTok-y influency type thing. She's got 2.8 million followers, which is pretty good. I don't know what her thing, I don't know what her stick is, but she's doing it pretty well. Anyway, so... What's her name again? Katie Lee Bailey. Katie Lee Bailey. Yeah. Anyway, so she released a TikTok video of her popping a cork and just generally celebrating with confetti because she'd completed on a house purchase, mortgage-free, I think.

Speaker C: 00:01:25

Okay, oh right. Presumably she's earned this money through being an influencer or something.

Speaker B: 00:01:28

Yeah, so this is based on her success as an influencer. So I think, you know, good on her, but the twist is, stirs up a hornet's nest. I'm sure everyone's very happy for her. Yeah, everyone is very happy apart from all the people who weren't. And she was then moved to release a follow-up video where she sort of profusely and tearfully apologises for bragging. Well, so hold on, the first post was, hey, great, I've managed to buy a house. This was the first post. I've not actually watched it. I've watched part transcript, but it's along the lines of, hey, I'm really happy. I just bought a house. Thank you to all my subscribers who made this possible. The usual kind of platitude-y type things you get. But... Hashtag blessed. Hashtag blessed. Yeah. Nice. Hashtag blessed. Yeah. So, but a lot of people took this as a barefaced brag. And didn't like it. And she was much derided and criticised for it. So she felt that she was moved to apologise. So, it got me to think, bragging, right, it's a really interesting problem. You as an individual, trying to signal your mating fitness, right? Yeah. Going around in evolutionary terms. Yeah. You have to show off a bit. You have to demonstrate that you've done certain things. So, there's obvious things you can, there are obvious things that help, right? So... As our mate, Nick Hare might say, this is our old friend, signalling.

Speaker C: 00:03:13

I'll just cross that bit out.

Speaker B: 00:03:15

Cross that out of the script, yeah. So, yeah. So, obviously, there are obviously certain signalling things which you can do. Like, you can be big and muscly. You can be attractive. Whatever that means. All these sorts of things which you can't change. But in a world, in a species such as ours, where much of what we do is cognitive. Yeah. And social, we have to be able to brag. What do you mean much of what we do is cognitive? What do you mean? You know, we think about things, we solve problems. Okay. And get a benefit and a result of that. So, signalling in that sense might be, oh, I read a really interesting book and I learnt this.

Speaker C: 00:03:53

And your value for, as a provider, your value might come from how you think quite just as much as how you...

Speaker B: 00:04:01

Yeah. So, you being able to demonstrate...

Speaker C: 00:04:03

How much you can bench press.

Speaker B: 00:04:05

Exactly. Yeah. So, we need to be able to brag in communications in order to show stuff off. Demonstrate our fitness, right? Yeah. And so, it's a necessary thing for a viable species that's social like us to do. But obviously, as poor old Katie Lee has found out, there's some sort of line over which you must not cross. Right. Yeah. I'm interested to find out where that line is. How can you... And if the line is not always in the same place, how can you spot the line... Yeah. ...before you go away bragging your mouth off... Yeah. ...and making yourself look like a tit?

Speaker A: 00:04:52

And so, this is... And also, so that when you go mortgage-free and buy your house mortgage-free, that you know how to brag about it in the correct way. Yes.

Speaker B: 00:04:59

Well, exactly. When my 2.8 million followers on Instagram... Yeah. ...pay for my house, then I'll know how to not do it. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker C: 00:05:08

Yeah, same with my 3.7 million. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:05:13

Oh, that's just on TikTok. I didn't talk about all the other ones.

Speaker A: 00:05:17

Yeah. Before you go on, I was only half listening. Apologies, Peter, while you were talking, because I was just researching this Katie Lee person. I wondered why it was going so smoothly. Yeah. That's why it was so quiet. I still can't quite... I don't understand what she does on TikTok and what her thing is, but let that just... Whatever she does, she's probably good at it. Yeah. And actually, just from what I've seen, yeah, it is as you described. She was like, I can see a post here saying mortgage-free and a homeowner at 21, baby, and popping a champagne thing. Well, good for her. And then, yeah, all hell lets loose. Okay. I can see a tearful apology to the video. From what I've seen, I feel bad for the girl, for the lady, though I don't know what she did to get TikTok famous. It might be skinning cats alive. I don't know. So that would probably put me off. I think we can all... Feel for her.

Speaker C: 00:06:04

Yeah. Because... And I think we will get to...

Speaker A: 00:06:06

The mob has turned on her.

Speaker C: 00:06:07

The reason why we sometimes need to brag. Yeah. And I think we're going to discuss some viable bragging strategies because it's something that we all maybe need to do. I just want to be a bit more specific, though, about... Now, Peter said it's about demonstrating fitness. Now, I don't think that's quite what bragging is. I actually think bragging is making claims about your fitness or drawing attention to your fitness. Not just from mate. It isn't just... Oh, yeah. Well, and I want to broaden it out and just say status. There you go. I like that. Yeah. So I think let's not just narrow it to mating, even though it might be the ultimate reason. Let's just say it's some attempt to gain status, but not through doing, but through saying or by calling attention to aspects of yourself. So, for example, I might be high status by earning an expensive watch and I might wear it. That's not bragging. But if I ostentatiously wafted in front of you or if I say, oh, have you seen my watch? This cost me £15,000. Bragging, right? So what I'm saying is it's not just... It is when... It's more than signaling. It's when you're calling attention to the signals or you're just making claims. Essentially, you are... It's upfront signaling. That's the thing. It's the signal is the content, right? Rather than something else being the content, which is incidentally the signal. That's what I just... You're looking like I'm not. No, no, no. No, okay, great.

Speaker A: 00:07:45

No, I'm not. That's a neutral consideration. So now... Sorry to Nick, before you go on, because I definitely want to hear what you're going to say, just as a little aside, just for a moment, how much of a bragger are you on a scale of one to ten? Because we can pick this up later. So one, never brag, humblest person, genuinely modest. Ten, oh, just dreadful. You know, my house is considerably expensive and more expensive.

Speaker B: 00:08:11

Well, I think it's worth tightening up, as Nick is doing, the definition of what we mean by brag here, because my definition I took to mean brag is... I think intuitively we can all feel something here. Because the literature around bragging actually includes bragging to include non-negatively connotated things.

Speaker C: 00:08:33

Well, yeah, we'll get... So at the moment, I'm not saying there's anything negative about this, right? I'm just trying to analyse what it is. And I think it is, if you like, where the signal is the content, I think is the idea. It's a bit like being ambitious. I think, let's put it that way. Kind of what we would like, we would like your success to be a result of you being good at something, right? And as a result, you become successful. If you're motivated by being successful, that isn't as good. We don't like it. Because your success then feels undeserved. It's because you're trying, you're doing it for the success. What I'm saying is the characteristic of bragging is that it is activity or statements that are designed to signal and only to do that, they're designed only. Sometimes you can inform someone of something and it can be useful, but it's also perhaps saying that you know something, but it might be actually useful. So if I give you some useful information, you're asking me for directions on the tube and I give you incredibly precise, very good directions and I even tell you which times the tubes will come and stuff. That's in a way, it's sort of showing off about my incredible tube knowledge, but it's also helpful for you. It doesn't count as bragging. If I sit down and go, did you know that I'm the foremost expert on tubes? For example, I can tell you that this, you know, this particular tube is just right now leaving Liverpool Street. I think the line's quite blurred, but keep going. Right. I just want to, I think we're there. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's where there's, yeah. So the problem of bragging, why is it bad? Well, I've got a few suggestions about why it's bad and they might lead us to be able to design clever methods of bragging or indeed to realise that we are already doing it and quite well. One to ten, how much of a bragger? I think properly analysed, I'm probably quite a bragger, but I just, I think I'm also quite good at hiding it, right? Yeah, that's good bragging. So. Which is a bit of a

Speaker A: 00:10:33

brag in itself, although not. Yeah, well we'll get. But reveals your, yeah. Or is that a humble

Speaker B: 00:10:37

brag? We'll get to that. Yeah. Two. Pretty, pretty non-braggy, I think. Yeah, I think, you know,

Speaker A: 00:10:45

you know Peter better than me, but I think I would go with that. I think it's a reasonable assessment. I think it's fair. What did you say for yourself? Oh, seven or eight maybe. Yeah. I think I'm somewhere between six and eight. You're huge. Oh, get out, you're higher than I am. Really? Oh,

Speaker C: 00:10:56

yeah. Okay, we can pick this up later. I've got some specific examples inspired by you. Oh,

Speaker B: 00:11:00

let me just say what the problem is. Just to confirm, have you got any specific examples inspired by me? Oh, maybe. I'll think about that. Yeah, you have to think. I think it's fair to say no,

Speaker C: 00:11:11

actually, but maybe that's because Peter, I don't, so this is what I'm getting onto. Brilliant. It might be because Peter's actually already high status. So here's the problem. Hold on, I don't like the logical conclusion there. Here's the problem of bragging, right? Yeah. Status seeking is low status, full stop. And it's because it implies that you don't have it already, right? So if you're trying to get status for yourself, it suggests that you're already below your status of other people. So it's not even so much that you're seeking the status, although that is the motivation for bragging. It's also that actually, even if you think you're high status, but your status isn't obvious. So perhaps you need to call attention to it. Perhaps you need to say, well, actually, you might not know this, but I'm actually quite an expert on, you know, Byzantine pottery or something. Well, the problem is that most of the time, if your high status is obvious, because at one extreme, you might have courtiers and lackeys and hype men who will go around telling everyone who you are and you'll arrive in a limousine and the doorman will open the door and you've got no need to signal your status. Your status is obvious for everyone to see, right? It's actually quite rare to be high status in a particular context and for other people not to know it. So that's the issue. The problem is that status seeking is low status and also not having an obviously high status is also actually lower status. So that's the problem we've got here is that bragging is trying to seek status in the first place, which is bad, but also it's trying to call attention to your status. And if you need to call attention to your status, let alone seek it, that's also bad. So that's the problem of bragging. That's the line we're drawing. We have to seek status by making claims or otherwise performing some behaviours that are designed to gain our status in a particular context. But we have to somehow not make it look like that's what we're doing. That's the problem of bragging and that's what we need to solve. That's the square we need to circle. Yeah, problem not in a moral sense or

Speaker A: 00:13:29

an ethical sense. It's just in a pure logical sense. Oh, it's a strategic sense, strategic problem. Yeah. So that's the problem we have to solve. Yeah. So what's the question again? How do we brag effectively, right? Or how do we do that? How do we get away with that? How do we pull

Speaker C: 00:13:44

off that trick? It's a tricky one, isn't it? It is. So I have identified quite a few strategies

Speaker B: 00:13:50

which we can analyse if you like. Yeah. Before we do that, I don't know if this gets, it may not get us any closer, but it might provide us with something to grapple with. Because I think different types of brag, different topics of brag have different rules around them. Oh yeah, go on. So I've come up with a little taxonomy of brags. Oh yeah, go for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If only it were a matrix. But anyway, go on. Okay. So first is success. And that breaks down really into two. So we'll treat them as two separate ones. Personal success and affiliate and group success. So your family or your company or whatever. Which is signalled with things like, you know, possession or claiming a position and achievements. Let's call it material. Material success. Qualities, the second category. So this would be like virtue sickness. Oh, I'm a very, I'm an early riser or, you know, that kind of thing. And then a separate category, pro-social behaviour. So brags, typical Instagram brags are things like, oh, well, yeah, there was this, there was a guy on the bus who didn't have enough change, so I paid for his fare. That kind of thing, right? Bragging about that. And then I think the final one is affiliation. So this is where you would say, oh, I'm a big Man U fan. You know, you've got some sort of affiliation, albeit completely made up, completely artificial to something that you think is important. So they're my four types. And I think they have distinct rules around them. And when it's appropriate to do different things with those. Now, the reason I say that, one of the reasons I say that. So the, around pro-social behaviour is an interesting phenomenon highlighted by a paper, we'll link it down in the thingy. But they, there's a survey of studies indicates, indicated that there's a context dependency with this around the knowledge in your audience. Okay. So they found that brags to do with pro-social behaviour were more, were better received in a pot, in an audience that didn't know you were pro, you had done pro-social things. So if they'd no previous knowledge that you were generally pro-social, bragging about being pro-social worked better than it did if people knew you were, if you were, if you had already previously demonstrated that you were pro-social. Do a lot of great work for charity. Yeah. Right. So saying that. This is good bragging. When you know, when the person knows nothing about you, works better than if you, you would stuff some money into a charity box and then say that, that comes off badly. And the rate, they explain it, they explain it in the sense that, that because it, it, it, it's unnecessary at that point. You don't, you, you're not providing the person with any more information. All you're doing is drawing attention to the fact that you do that. I just did this. That's interesting. Which, which, so it undermines, it undermines the message because you're, you're, it's already known, it's already known to the audience. And all you're doing is pointing out, all you're doing then is signalling that you're essentially trying to gain status.

Speaker A: 00:17:05

Gotcha. I like your advice. It's the calling attention. On the Tube journey home today, I'm going to turn to the neighbour next to me and I'm going, I do a lot of charity, you know, I do a lot of charity and that's going to work. We've just, yeah, that's, that works better

Speaker B: 00:17:18

than if you were in some way known to that person. Yeah. And saying that. Okay. Okay. So another phenomenon is probably applies to different types, multiple types of my, in my taxonomy is do is a miscalibration with how you perceive your brag is going to go to, going to go down with your audience. So people have a tendency to project their own perception onto other people. So they think, oh, I'm going to, you know, I, I'm a pro-social person. I, I think these people would like to know that I'm a pro-social person because I, that's the sort of thing I'd like to know. So then you brag about it and it falls flatter. Because they've miscalibrated by, by, by projecting essentially their own. I'm happy

Speaker C: 00:18:08

for me. So all of these other people will be happy for me. Yeah. And I would like to know

Speaker A: 00:18:12

if I was another person I'd like, I would like to know that I'm happy and brilliant. So yeah.

Speaker B: 00:18:17

So, yeah. So I think there's a context dependency as a factor. And I think that intuitively makes sense. Right. So Katie Lee, presumably there were lots of people who were genuinely happy for her, lots of, probably the majority of her followers, because they're bought into that sort of thing she says on her channel. Right. There's probably a small minority of dissenters who gave her abuse for it. So the, and you can't say anything at all, ever, without the possibility of offending somebody. Right. So whatever you do, there's going to be somebody who will take offence to that thing you say. Well, maybe not in all cases, but you know, if you say something, anything remotely controversial, somebody will find that controversial. But also I think there's this,

Speaker C: 00:19:04

with status signals, there's an inherent dependency. And again, this is something we've talked about before, where the effectiveness of a status symbol is to separate you from the other levels very close to you. That's the key thing. Right. So it's designed to differentiate you from the people below you and make you look like the people just above you. It doesn't work if you use it on people a long way above or below you. Right. So in the hierarchy of rappers, right, getting a bigger car and maybe having an extra gold tooth or something. It works like that actually is a way of signalling success. But it's not going to work again on, you know, the Lord Chesterfield with his with his, you know, 25 bedroomed stately home. He's not going to be impressed with that doesn't work on him. Right. So it's that you've already got that problem that if you're sending out a signal to multiple people, the effect is going to have is only going to be what you intended if it's if it's hitting precisely the right segment of your audience, which is the people

Speaker B: 00:20:12

above and below you. Right. Yeah. And even and even within any given person, there's probably quite a lot of variation based on their mood that day. Yeah. Yeah. And I correct. But I'm just so I

Speaker C: 00:20:24

would speculate that Katie Lee's buying a house. People are going to like that are people who probably see themselves as a bit like her, maybe a little bit striving bit below her going to be like her one day. Same ambition, same ideals. Good for her. She's bought a house. I'm hoping to get a house. The people who won't work for are people who, you know, have to work six day weeks and can't cover their rent and, you know, have no prospect of getting there at all. It's going to feel like that's going to feel like bragging. That's a speculation. But it feels to me like that's plausible because that signal which differentiates herself puts her above her near peers. It also, you know, is intolerable to people who aren't anywhere near her on the social. And it just looks like she's, you know, basking in the level she's at. Just one thing. Did Peter finish off

Speaker B: 00:21:17

his bit? No, I just don't like it was just general. Okay. Provided a couple of examples of where you

Speaker C: 00:21:22

can go wrong. Gotcha. Context. Fine. Fine. Yeah. But I think I think and I think Peter's taxonomy is great. Yeah. I feel like if I had to pick a fundamental thing, there would be that really all bragging is about qualities. That may not be how we how we feel. But it sort of feels like showing off your material success is really a way of showing off about your personal quality. But I don't I don't know. Anyway, but the point is, I think it's good that that is a good way of thinking about, you know, what are the things you're signalling there, who you are and what you've got. Yeah. So where are you taking us? Okay, I'm going to start talking about strategies. King of the strategies. King of the bragging strategies, right? Show, don't tell. In a way, this is like saying, just don't brag. Just just be high status. Yeah. Just be good looking. It's the ultimate brag. Well, well, because it's not a brag. This is it. Well, it's basically send signals that cannot be replicated by other people. Now, what are some good examples of that? Well, being, you know, interesting or knowing things or being funny, but also, you know, being if you're saying bold, you don't need to tell people that you're really fast at running. You just do it on telly and everyone goes, you're fast at running. Maybe you should do that for a living. Yeah. So that is the sort of if you can do that, then that's the ultimate. Right now, the problem is, obviously, you can't always. But but, you know, if you're trying to show that you are if you instead of telling people, you know, oh, yeah, I've got a PhD and I went to Oxford. We'll get to you in a minute, by the way, Fraser, you you should simply know things and be interesting. If you can do that, then you are not bragging. I think there's a problem here, though.

Speaker B: 00:23:13

But there is a there is a way of delivering that that doesn't look like being a dick, though.

Speaker C: 00:23:18

But the point is that it is what it would work. I agree. There are ways of doing it, which make it look like you're you're motivated by the bragging. But if you can simply be the thing you're talking about, then that's that's it. That's the cream of the crop. If you can't do that,

Speaker A: 00:23:32

we've got to look at slightly harder strategy. Just to say, I think this is where we run into trouble with our definition. I think it's a little bit too narrow. And I think it's too economically oriented, because I think by our definition, we're saying if you've got a what if you drive around in a white Rolls Royce, which you own, that's not bragging. But if you go into a pub and say, see that car parked outside? Well, that is bragging. No,

Speaker C: 00:23:57

that's where I think it falls down. Not quite. No. So I think the signal is a brag. I don't think signaling is bragging. Signaling is not bragging. It's just signaling. So wait, wait, wait, Fraser, just to take that example, because it's a good one. If you bought the Rolls Royce, because you want because you really like Rolls Royce. Yeah. And you can afford one. Yeah. Not a brag. If you bought the Rolls Royce so that you could drive around town and make people think you were rich, brag. But I think I mean, OK, great. I like the motivation is the signal. Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:24:27

It is always a brag because no one buys a white Rolls Royce not to brag. Anyway, it sounds like but actually we're still on the same thing.

Speaker C: 00:24:36

If there are things like that, I think those are things that are always going to look like exact. I mean, I think that's right. I think we're on the same page. Imagine someone in a white Rolls Royce. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Exactly. Yeah. That tells you it's a brag.

Speaker A: 00:24:49

Yeah. So I think we're on the same. We're agreeing with each other. So my next my next

Speaker C: 00:24:53

now you're in tricky territory now because you can't show. We're now in telling territory. So this is and I think actually that this is sort of a subset of show don't tell, but demonstrating status simply by saying or knowing or thinking things that confer status. This is you're having a conversation about, you know, a war in Iraq. And you say, isn't it bad? Tony Blair's a liar. It looks like it looks like you're, you know, simply expressing opinions or whatever. But but there might be an element where you're affiliating yourself with the good guys, you know, to go back to Peter's sort of affiliation thing that, you know, you're you're sort of expressing opinions to shut in order to make people realize you're a certain kind of maybe nice person or admirable person or something. So that's that's the next thing down. It's like if you can't do it, but at least you can you can you might be able to to say or know or think things that will only people who are like that would say or know or think. Right. So it's a kind of subset. It's a weaker subset. Exposing a value of some kind. Yeah. Yeah. But but also, I mean, I think I think a subset of that or an easily handled subset of that would be name dropping, for example, which is, you know, you're you're saying that you had a chat with, you know, your friend King Charles or Rishi soon. Rishi. Well, they

Speaker A: 00:26:24

both came around for dinner. Yeah. Or even better. You say I was chatting with my mate Charles the

Speaker C: 00:26:28

other day. Yeah. I don't think I know. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. That's the way to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of thing. Oh, actually, he was on telly the other week. You might have might have seen him. Yeah. Yeah. So. So name dropping is a is a it's an easily understood example of that way where you're maybe you do know King Charles. We'll get onto lying at the end. But but maybe you do know him and actually is quite high status being mates with the king and and actually being saying, oh, you know, King Charles thinks that as well. I know because I had a chat with him last week. No, no. My mate Charlie knows that as well. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, all of all of that is is, you know, that probably does make you quite high status. And you're telling people that stuff. But you're not you're not you're delivering it because it's part of what you're talking about,

Speaker B: 00:27:19

not because you because you want to say that. Yeah. Don't just come right out and say, hi, everybody. Nice to meet you. Exactly. Had dinner with King Charles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker C: 00:27:28

I did it with my mate Charlie last night. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, I just call him King. But OK. The big K. Getting others to brag on your behalf is great. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. If you can if you can. Now, I know I've seen people do this strategically. I've seen this is a mating thing as well. You know, that's a really. Oh, there's that the wingman. Yeah. Yeah. This is more about trying to you prompting people to do that. So it's a bit like, you know, if people are having a conversation about, I don't know, you subtly introduced the topic of crystals, you know, the crystals are interesting, aren't they? And then everyone starts having a chat about crystals. And then, you know, Mandy, who's sitting opposite the table, goes, but Andrew, because that's you, you've got a PhD in crystallography. And you're like, oh, well, yes, I do. Oh, yeah, no, I do. And now you come to mention it. That which is a really common strategy that you see, it's sort of putting yourself in a position where people will have

Speaker A: 00:28:28

to brag on your behalf. By the way, I'm dreading what's coming later in this podcast because I do

Speaker C: 00:28:32

ble brag was only invented in: 2010

Speaker A: 00:29:18

Twitter. Chef type person. I don't know. Yeah. She's a she came famous through during austerity of how to cook a meal for a quid. Basically, that kind of thing. She's got this three tweets in a

Speaker C: 00:29:33

row. Love is when your seven year old knocks your woman of the year award off the shelf and smashes it and you scoop him up and tell him it's fine. Oh, my God. Because because the work you did because the work you did to get that award is still out there in the world. And I don't need a big bronze eagle with my name on it when I have a drawer full of letters from readers whose lives I've changed. Instead, he's more distraught than I am. Poor sausage. Oh, yeah. It's a good. That's like Kylie Jenner. My family teases me for being a billionaire. There's another tweet laughing my ass off. I never in LMAO. This boy with a fake Gucci bag just asked for my number. I said I had a boyfriend. He said, like, damn, I was trying to take you to dinner in my Beamer out there and pointed to my car. So there's so much going on there. Yeah, I know. I love this one because it's like people come up to me. People are always coming up to me asking me to take me to dinner. But lol, this guy was going to pretend that my car was his car. It's a BMW, by the way. It's like it's perfect. And I think I feel the same vibe from people who say, oh, I'm so grateful for X, Y and Z or so excited to be part of, you know, to be asked to do this. Hashtag blessed. Yeah, exactly. The hashtag. Hashtag blessed thing. So my my analysis of the humble brag. And this may be wrong, but I'm going to go for it. Is that a humble brag is an attempt to concede a status marker for a status that you're obviously above in order to gain a status marker for something which you surreptitiously introduce, which is actually the status status marker you're seeking. Let me give you an example from my friend Fraser McGruer.

Speaker A: 00:31:20

Hold on before you do. OK, I'm about to this can be out the condemn myself my own mouth, which is the what's awful about this kind is that is the complexity of which you've described. Suggests so much thought has gone into it. So it's very intentional. I think we intuit

Speaker C: 00:31:37

how to do this, actually. And I think it because it works. I've got it here as a viable strategy. You have to get it right. So, for example, some you on another podcast, you mentioned that you got a third. Yeah, you. But you as it happens, I know that you went to Oxford and it is possible that you might communicate to someone that you've got a third from Oxford. Yeah, because it now you might present that self-deprecating. You've got a third. Yeah, because you're you're pretending that you are low status on the old. What did you get in your degree competition? But you secretly know the real competition is where did you go to university? Yeah. So you've so you've conceded what looks like you're low status because I only got a third. What you're really doing is saying I'm higher status than you because I went to a better university. I think some of that's worth 20 of your firsts from Edinburgh. Yes, it's what you're trying to say, which is true, by the way.

Speaker B: 00:32:33

Yeah, but I just had a first. But also, there's a romanticism about being the layabout at Oxford, the sort of, you know, the arty poet type who went to university but never actually went to university. Yeah. Sort of sort of rafish, rakish, which fits in with the model that you're that I

Speaker A: 00:32:51

think. Yeah, yeah. But you're probably right. And just one other thing, there's another brag going on there, which I think is a quality of like how I'm a really honest person that I can own up to

Speaker C: 00:32:58

this as well. Right. But which you can because you're above where that status battle is happening. Yeah. Already above that. Yeah. So in like this phenomenon observed apparently among Native Americans of kind of showing off by burning your possessions, because it's like saying, well, I've got so many possessions, I can afford to burn them. I can have a bonfire and chuck our prized, you know, my prized Lamborghini. Yeah. Which is what you're doing, I think, when you're humble bragging. You're burning some status somewhere because it's like a way in a way that says I've got so much of this stuff, lol, I can chuck away having a good degree because I've, you know. So that's my theory of humble bragging is it concedes a low status marker in order to gain a high status marker. It puts me in mind of building a board game

Speaker B: 00:33:48

around just that. Yeah. That particular mechanic. Yeah. And trying to get trying to get where you

Speaker C: 00:33:53

have to concede something in order to get. Yeah. So I think it's anyway, that's my analysis of that humble bragging. And I think it's really interesting. But the point is, it can work. The point is, it works. Right. But just not as badly as Jack Monroe has done it here.

Speaker A: 00:34:09

That's disgraceful. I'm disappointed in her, actually, because so basically she's a darling of the Guardian. Right. And that's where she started publishing. She's got a column there and so on. Yeah. And you can imagine what the Daily Mail thinks of her. Because apart from anything else, I think she's a single, single mother. And they just, you know, really not into her. And she was her who won a lawsuit against a defamation thing against who's that horrible right wing person in the UK, Katie? There's quite a few. Katie Hopkins. Katie Hopkins. Right. She won. And Katie Hopkins more or less bankrupted her like a million quid. So I always thought, good on you, Jack Monroe. But this has changed my, this is all right. Yeah. Look,

Speaker C: 00:34:49

we're close. I've got one final. Go on. Well, apart from, I think we've sort of covered it, but be high status. That's really the way. Be so high status you don't need to brag. Get your lackeys. Yeah. Get your, you know, your. Can you give us some examples of a humble brag that

Speaker B: 00:35:06

would work? Maybe you might need to describe context as well, I suspect. Well, I know,

Speaker C: 00:35:11

I think, see, I think the thing is that a lot of things where the humble brags, it's like wigs. The humble brags you notice are simply the bad humble brags. Yeah. You know, I think the point is that actually we do this all the time because we're quite good at skating that line. Isn't this

Speaker A: 00:35:28

like being a lord and driving around in a Vauxhall Viva or something? I mean, something like that. You know, it's that. And yeah, it's just charmingly eccentric. We love that. Yeah. Yeah. Or putting

Speaker C: 00:35:39

your Oscar in the toilet. Yeah. You know, which is a classic British thing to do is to put your Oxford

Speaker A: 00:35:49

alumni up in the loo where no one can see it, but everyone can see it. Yeah. So I think actually

Speaker C: 00:35:55

people humble brag all the time. And so this is the this is the way it's like, OK, well, I mean, for myself, for example, dressing shabbily, which I don't. I do. But I don't exactly make a virtue of it. But I'm not exactly ashamed of it either. And I feel like not caring about how you dress is something I'm willing to give away to in order to say, you know, I don't need to dress well. It's not I don't. No one is marking my dress code. And that's because I don't work in on a reception. I'm not I'm not a sales rep. You know, I dress how I bloody well like. It's very

Speaker B: 00:36:32

deliberate because you're always very well shod. So you're showing. Yeah. Again, quite a lordly,

Speaker A: 00:36:38

quite an aristocratic thing to be done doing. And yeah. So you have a wonderful like this tatty old jacket or something is actually from Savile Row. Your father gave it to you, let's say. And but that's what you shuffle around in this kind of thing going on. So so anyway, so I think I

Speaker C: 00:36:55

think the point is that we are very just, you know, but as an analysis, think about that. Think about, OK, what I'm trying to do here is is is concede a low, a slightly lower status thing that is never going to apply to me anyway. I don't have to worry about that competition. And in doing so, I will sneak in, you know, something which I'm trying to show off about.

Speaker A: 00:37:17

Yeah. I mean, show off. That's a word I want to pick up on, actually. Yeah. But because we do need to wrap up, but we might want to move this to round this off with something. But just to say

Speaker C: 00:37:27

a couple of things, I chose one last strategy. Yeah, go on. So this is and this is a really this is a risky move. This is if you like this, this one, if you pull it off, it's the best kind of brag. I call I reckon it should be called something like lampshade bragging. Right. This is where you just tell people you're bragging. Yeah, yeah. Hey, look, I you know, I just won a Nobel Prize. Isn't that awesome? Sorry to show off. But, you know, isn't that great? And the reason I think now, you know, we've spent a lot of time talking about how bragging is low status. This is like saying I'm so high status. I can brag. I can tell you I'm bragging. And I don't even care that that's low status because I'm so high status. It's not going to it's not going to affect me. I used to. I think I think I think that's a really if you can pull that off. You have to

Speaker A: 00:38:16

have a lot of charm. Bloody risky. You have to have the right audience and a lot of charm. Yeah. Right. Look, we need to kind of wrap this up just before we do in defence of bragging. And I think you are accurate in what you've said is I'm not so much a bragger, but I'm quite a show offer. I am quite show offy. OK, one. And so for that, I need forgiveness and understanding, because two, that is rooted in insecurity, probably. OK. And there's in some ways there's nothing wrong with showing off because showing off can be great. I mean, actors, good actors and comedians, they're show offs. That's nice. It's quite fun for everyone else. So I'm giving something there. Three. OK, thanks for letting us know. Yeah, I just can't escape this. We're pretty damn lucky, aren't we? We're sharing a room. When you say we, you're talking about our thousands of listeners. Hashtag blessed. But three, you know, no one lives in isolation in the world. And it's it's as we said, it's the audience. And one of the issues you have with my bragging about Oxford is we know what the issue there is. Right. And it's all connected to that. And actually, because I somehow can't avoid it. I don't want to, but it somehow ends up there.

Speaker B: 00:39:22

And I honestly don't want to. I think you always bring up Oxford because, you know, Nick's got a massive shoulder belt. No, but I think it's a way of trying to win. No, but I do

Speaker A: 00:39:30

it. I do it and I don't want to do it, but it makes me very conscious every time I drift near that, you know, and it makes me feel terribly uncomfortable. No, but when you say it's

Speaker C: 00:39:38

insecurity, of course, because that's what this is all about. All of this is about, you know, wanting to be a bit higher up on the social hierarchy than you are. And I think you've nailed it. So that's fine. It's fine to be insecure. It's fine to you. We've established that there are times you need to brag. You might be high status and the people, the morons around you might not know. And you've got to somehow work out a way of making them realise you're higher status than them, but without making it obvious that that's what you're doing. And I think that's a it's a perfectly normal and reasonable thing to do. Yeah. Are we done?

Speaker A: 00:40:07

Are we done? I might have a question. I don't know. I'm done. Yeah, I think we're done. I think we've explored this nicely. Massive. What's the most recent braggy thing you've done? Actually, and I asked this because I know what I want to say, which in itself, no, that's what I mean.

Speaker C: 00:40:21

I'm bragging by asking this. Yeah, yeah. This is a classic sort of, oh, I've got a good idea. Why don't we all see who can jump the highest? Oh, it's me again. Worst brag that you know of. I'm

Speaker A: 00:40:37

going to kick us off. Okay. Worst bragger I ever knew was in my town where I came from. There was a very super rich family. How do you know they were super rich? Because the father drove around in a white Rolls Royce. Oh, it's that guy. Yeah. And they were insufferable. And the son was awful. A mate of mine who started working in a pub, that same bloke, the father came in once and everyone recognised because he used to have this massive coat and cash and all this kind of business. And he demanded some change for the phone. Because he didn't have any pennies, and my mate refused to give him any change. And so what did the guy say? What did he say?

Speaker B: 00:41:10

Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? Do you know how much I spend here? Okay, well, I have a habit and sometimes it works in my favour and sometimes it doesn't in conversation. And especially with people I don't know very well. So when getting to know people, I try, this is me just genuinely being me and trying to demonstrate interest in the conversation. But I'll bring, I'll sort of bring in external knowledge as a sort of interesting factoid that the person might be interested in. That sort of, that's not necessary. And it might come across sometimes as a bit of a kind of like, oh, I'm showing off how much I know about stuff. But you're actually trying to help them, you're saying? Well, just I'm trying to advance the conversation by giving them an interesting thing to think about. Bring the conversation up a level from the weather to something a bit more interesting. It sounds like you're humble bragging right now. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker C: 00:42:06

should be. Nick? Well, yeah, I mean, I've, I've so, well, actually, I haven't had a thought about this. This is not really, again, it's like, this is how you brag effectively, is complaining about my kitchen renovation overrunning. Aren't they dreadful? It's awful when that happens. I know. And that's just actually the Katie Lee example has made me think, well, you know, moaning about your kitchen renovation is definitely a first world problem. But it's a kind of, perhaps it falls into the humble brag category. Because it's, you know, it's a way of saying, look, I've got a

Speaker A: 00:42:43

kitchen. Yeah. And I've got the money to renovate it. You need to save yourself now for your millions of followers are going to turn on you, Nick. I know. Be careful. Okay, right. I'll stop there. That was fun. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.