Everyone has complained about being stressed and overworked at some point, but 'stress bragging' may double back to harm you In experiments, workers reacted more negatively to stress bragging versus passing comments about being busy or anxious Stress braggers can bring down the morale of the whole workplace, researchers noted MONDAY, May 27, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- "Ugh, I'm so busy these days I can barely think straight. It's so crazy." No doubt some friend or coworker (maybe even yourself) has moaned about how stressed and overworked they are.
Sometimes its fully justified, but in many cases folks see it as "stress bragging," or "busy bragging," signaling how important and needed the person is. In those cases, stress bragging could do you more harm than good, new research shows. “This is a behavior we’ve all seen, and we all might be guilty of at some point,” said study author Jessica Rodell , a professor of management at the University of Georgia Athens' Terry College of Business.
“When I was wondering about why people do this, I thought maybe we are talking about our stress because we want to prove we’re good enough," she said in a university news release. "We found out that often backfires.” Instead of instilling respect and sympathy in co-workers, stress braggers often are looked upon as unlikable and less competent, the study found.
The data was based on a survey of 360 adults who were told to imagine that a colleague had just returned from a business conf.
