Overselling and Underselling in Self-Promotion

Abstract: The present article examines how evaluators and communicators (mis)perceive communicators’ self-promotion in high-stakes evaluative interactions such as job applications and interviews where information about objective accomplishments is available. We distinguish between overselling and underselling (presenting one’s merits more positively or more modestly than warranted by one’s objective achievements) and test whether communicators’ and evaluators’ perceptions of communicators’ self-promotion differ because of differences in their construal of what constitutes overselling and underselling, or because of differences in their evaluations of how under- and overselling shapes impressions. Across a pilot and three hypothesis testing studies (total N = 856), we find that evaluators and communicators largely agree on what counts as overselling or underselling. However, evaluators evaluate underselling more positively and overselling more negatively than communicators anticipate (b’s between 0.23 and 0.52), partly because communicators fail to recognize that greater self-enhancement reduces perceived authenticity in the eyes of evaluators (b = 0.32).

Keywords: Self-promotion; impressions; overselling; underselling; authenticity.