The Hubris Hypothesis: People particularly dislike explicitly comparative braggers from their ingroup

Observers dislike explicit self-superiority claimants (individuals who assert that they are better than others) relative to implicit self-superiority claimants (individuals who assert that they are good). The hubris hypothesis provides an explanation: Observers infer from explicit (but not from implicit) self-superiority claims that the claimants view others, and therefore the observers, negatively. We tested the hypothesis by manipulating the group membership of the claimants. We predicted that observers would dislike explicit (vs. implicit) ingroup self-superiority claimants who compared themselves to the observers’ ingroup (vs. outgroup self-superiority claimants who compared themselves to the observers’ outgroup). Further, observers’ dislike for explicit ingroup self-superiority claimants would depend on the inference that they held a negative view of observers. We obtained support for these predictions among both minimal groups (Experiment 1; N = 100) and natural groups (Experiment 2; N = 114).

Publication year:2019

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Authors:International

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Open