I am not talking to you: Partitioning an audience in an attempt to solve the self-promotion dilemma✰

Abstract

This work investigates self-promotion partitioning, a strategy used in group conversations by self-promoters trying to overcome the self-promotion dilemma – a desire to share self-enhancing information without appearing to be overtly bragging. Self-promotion partitioning occurs when individuals partition their audience by addressing one or more specific recipients, deliberately turning unaddressed recipients into “bystanders.” Across a series of experiments and the analysis of secondary data, we show people disproportionally favor partitioning their audience when they face the self-promotion dilemma, both in face-to-face conversations and on social media platforms. They do so because they expect bystanders to believe they were not intended recipients, and in turn be less likely to see the self-promoter as overtly bragging, resulting in a more favorable impression. We also identify an important boundary condition, audience size; when partitioning creates a single bystander, the self-promoter worries partitioning would make the lone bystander feel excluded and ultimately hurt impressions.