“I’ve just been so stressed lately with this big project!”
You may think you are bonding with colleagues over your demanding work load, but if you are constantly boasting about how hard your job is, you are “stress bragging,” according to management researchers. And it could be harming your professional reputation.
In a recent study published in Personnel Psychology, Jessica Rodell, a researcher from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, along with her colleagues, found that people who brag about feeling stressed at work are seen as less competent and likeable by their co-workers.
“We want other people to like us and think that we’re smart. But if we say it directly, then we innately kind of know it’s not going to work,” Rodell told HuffPost, adding that stress bragging can be an indirect attempt to communicate that you are a valuable hard worker, “but it doesn’t work.”
If you work long enough, you will encounter a stress bragger who needs to impress you with their challenging, tough job ― or you might be the stress bragger yourself.
“A large reason why stress bragging commonly happens is that we still live in a society that glorifies being busy,” said Shannon Garcia, a psychotherapist at States of Wellness Counselling based in Illinois and Wisconsin. “If we are pushing ourselves to the max and beyond at work, we want people to know about it.”
Why stress bragging backfires at work
In an experiment part of Rodell’s study, 360 participants were asked to read different scenarios about a fictional colleague who had just returned from a work conference, with one of the scenarios being about a stress bragger. This co-worker complained that the conference was “just one more thing on my full plate. And I was already stressed to the max … you have no idea the stress that I am under.”
Participants rated that colleague as significantly less warm and competent than another employee who simply said it was “good” but also stressful, or one who boasted about how awesome the conference was.
“Even though someone may think, ‘Oh, this is conveying that I have a lot of responsibility and demands at work,’ what someone else is seeing with stress bragging is, ‘You’re not good enough to keep up with your job,’” Rodell said.
“And the overt, explicit kind of direct talking about it as if it’s a badge of honour is the part that lowers the likability. We value humility and relatability with others, and that bragging makes us like people less,” she added.
This behaviour has the potential for long-term negative consequences; participants in the experiment said they were less likely to go out of their way to help a stress bragger, for example.
“They’re not going to offer to help you with a project or speak highly about you to somebody else,” Rodell said.
What to do if you are a stress bragger ― or work with one ― at your job
The takeaway from the study is not that you cannot ever admit to feeling stressed at work, but to be considerate of how you express it.
Psychologist and executive coach Lauren Appio said stress bragging might be a way for people to communicate their needs indirectly “and hope someone else will pick up on them without having to do the hard or embarrassing thing of speaking up more transparently.”
But people often “chafe” at indirect communication and can become “annoyed that you won’t just come out with it,” Appio noted. So instead of doing passive-aggressive stress bragging, she suggested trying to directly communicate your experience with, “I’m overwhelmed and really need to adjust my workload” or “I’m really proud I got tapped for this big project!”
And remember that if you’re stressed, it’s likely your co-workers are, too. So don’t forget to ask them how they are doing. That’s a key difference between a draining vent session and a commiserating two-way conversation with a colleague.
“Statements like, ‘It’s a lot today, isn’t it?’ or ‘It’s been a hard week’ are both ways to invite that they may also be feeling the pressure of work,” Garcia said. “Acknowledging co-workers’ efforts and challenges shows that you recognise everyone has their own burdens.”
And if you work with a stress bragger, you need to be vigilant about protecting your energy because stress bragging has a “contagion effect” on workplaces, Rodell said.
In another experiment for Rodell’s study, 187 pairs of employees were surveyed over weeks about the stresses of working with each other. The employees who worked closely with stress-bragging colleagues reported higher levels of personal stress and burnout.
“The more you are with somebody who’s bragging about stress, the more stressed you are likely to feel,” Rodell said, adding that in worst cases, it can create a workplace where it becomes an expectation to be stressed and to value that stress.
In this way, stress bragging has higher stakes than one disgruntled co-worker — it can start to take down and lower the energies of a whole team.
“If you’re already stressed and your co-worker starts unloading about their stress, you may not have the emotional capacity to hear it. So you may feel frustrated and resentful toward the stress bragger for adding more to your emotional plate,” Appio said.
So for the sake of your own wellbeing, it’s important to walk away or redirect the conversation back to work if your debriefs with peers keep turning into stress-bragging sessions.
“What this is showing is we internalise [stress] without realising [it],” Rodell said about her study. “And so we should be careful not to overly indulge the stress braggart, because we will take on some of that stress over time.”