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Ovul Sezer

Cornell University, Management and Organizations, Faculty Member

Harvard University, Harvard Business School, Graduate Student

UNC Kenan-Flagler, Organizational Behavior, Faculty Member

Columbia University, Columbia Business School, Faculty Member

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I am a scientist and a stand-up comedian who observes life with science, wonder and humor.

During the day, I am an Assistant Professor at Cornell University. Late at night, I perform stand-up routines in comedy clubs. I apply the same observational tools to both jobs: I identify a particular human behavior that strikes me as odd, interesting, or confusing, and either study it in-depth using experiments or describe it with humor.

For more information about me, you can visit www.ovulsezer.com

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Universidad Andrés Bello

University of the Basque Country, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

University of the Basque Country, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

Brian Masciadrelli

SUNY Fredonia

Anneliese Harper

Scottsdale Community College

Estonian Literary Museum

Jennifer R Cash

Nanyang Technological University

Mara Buchbinder

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Papers by Ovul Sezer

Family Rituals Improve the Holidays

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2016

Behavioral insights for minimizing loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic

Behavioral Science & Policy

Impression (Mis)Management: When What You Say Is Not What They Hear

Current Opinion in Psychology

Self-promotion is common in everyday life. Yet, across seven studies (N = 1,672) examining a broa... more Self-promotion is common in everyday life. Yet, across seven studies (N = 1,672) examining a broad range of personal and professional successes, we find that individuals often hide their successes from others and that such hiding has harmful relational consequences. We document these effects among close relational partners, strangers, and within hypothetical relationships. In Study 1, we find that targets feel less close to and more insulted by communicators who hide rather than share their successes. Conversely, sharing success increases closeness, despite also triggering envy. In Study 2, we find that hiding is more costly than sharing success, even when the target does not learn about the act of hiding. That is, hiding success harms relationships both when the success is eventually discovered and when it is not. In Studies 3 and 4, we explore the mechanism underlying these interpersonal costs: Targets infer that communicators have paternalistic motives when they hide their succes...

Humblebragging: A Distinct—and Ineffective—Self-Presentation Strategy

Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent... more Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent on others' impressions. We identify and offer the first empirical investigation of a prevalent, yet under-studied, self-presentation strategy: humblebragging. Across 9 studies, including a week-long diary study and a field experiment, we identify humblebragging— bragging masked by a complaint or humility—as a common, conceptually distinct, and ineffective form of self-presentation. We first document the ubiquity of humblebragging across several domains, from everyday life to social media. We then show that both forms of humblebragging— complaint-based or humility-based—are less effective than straightforward bragging, as they reduce liking, perceived competence, compliance with requests, and financial generosity. Despite being more common, complaint-based humblebrags are less effective than humility-based humblebrags, and are even less effective than simply complaining. We show that people choose to deploy humblebrags particularly when motivated to both elicit sympathy and impress others. Despite the belief that combining bragging with complaining or humility confers the benefits of each strategy, we find that humblebragging confers the benefits of neither, instead backfiring because it is seen as insincere.

Humblebragging: A Distinct—and Ineffective—Self-Presentation Strategy

Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent... more Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent on others' impressions. We identify and offer the first empirical investigation of a prevalent, yet under-studied, self-presentation strategy: humblebragging. Across 9 studies, including a week-long diary study and a field experiment, we identify humblebragging— bragging masked by a complaint or humility—as a common, conceptually distinct, and ineffective form of self-presentation. We first document the ubiquity of humblebragging across several domains, from everyday life to social media. We then show that both forms of humblebragging— complaint-based or humility-based—are less effective than straightforward bragging, as they reduce liking, perceived competence, compliance with requests, and financial generosity. Despite being more common, complaint-based humblebrags are less effective than humility-based humblebrags, and are even less effective than simply complaining. We show that people choose to deploy humblebrags particularly when motivated to both elicit sympathy and impress others. Despite the belief that combining bragging with complaining or humility confers the benefits of each strategy, we find that humblebragging confers the benefits of neither, instead backfiring because it is seen as insincere.

Humblebragging: A Distinct And Ineffective Self-Presentation Strategy

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent... more Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent on others' impressions. We identify and offer the first empirical investigation of a prevalent, yet understudied, self-presentation strategy: humblebragging. Across 9 studies, including a week-long diary study and a field experiment, we identify humblebragging-bragging masked by a complaint or humility-as a common, conceptually distinct, and ineffective form of self-presentation. We first document the ubiquity of humblebragging across several domains, from everyday life to social media. We then show that both forms of humblebragging-complaint-based or humility-based-are less effective than straightforward bragging, as they reduce liking, perceived competence, compliance with requests, and financial generosity. Despite being more common, complaint-based humblebrags are less effective than humility-based humblebrags, and are even less effective than simply complaining. We show that people choose to deploy humblebrags particularly when motivated to both elicit sympathy and impress others. Despite the belief that combining bragging with complaining or humility confers the benefits of each strategy, we find that humblebragging confers the benefits of neither, instead backfiring because it is seen as insincere.

Vicarious Contagion Decreases Differentiation – and Comes with Costs

Bounded awareness: Implications for ethical decision making

In many of the business scandals of the new millennium, the perpetrators were surrounded by peopl... more In many of the business scandals of the new millennium, the perpetrators were surrounded by people who could have recognized the misbehavior, yet failed to notice it. To explain such inaction, management scholars have been developing the area of behavioral ethics and the more specific topic of bounded ethicality—the systematic and predictable ways in which even good people engage in unethical conduct without their own awareness. In this paper, we review research on both bounded ethicality and bounded awareness, and connect the two areas to highlight the challenges of encouraging managers and leaders to notice and act to stop unethical conduct. We close with directions for future research and suggest that noticing unethical behavior should be considered a critical leadership skill.

Family Rituals Improve the Holidays

Rituals are central to family life. Three studies (N 5 1,098) tested the relationship between fam... more Rituals are central to family life. Three studies (N 5 1,098) tested the relationship between family rituals and holiday enjoyment and demonstrated that family rituals improve the holidays because they amplify family closeness and involvement in the experience. In study 1, participants who reported having family rituals on Christmas were more likely to spend the holiday with family and to enjoy the holiday more. Moreover, while simply spending the holiday with family was associated with greater enjoyment, enacting a ritual while with family added significantly to that enjoyment. Study 2 replicated these findings for family rituals pertaining to a secular holiday, New Year's Eve. Study 3 used an experimental design and had participants either describe their rituals and then report their holiday enjoyment (as in studies 1 and 2) or report their holiday enjoyment and then describe their rituals; in both conditions, being with family and enacting a ritual was associated with the greatest enjoyment, suggesting that it is having enacted rituals—and not merely reflecting on them—that enhances enjoyment. Participants were unlikely to engage in individual rituals (i.e., on their own without family involvement), and when they did, individual rituals were not associated with holiday enjoyment. In sum, three studies consistently demonstrate that family rituals on holidays are associated with feelings of closeness and greater intrinsic interest, leading to holiday enjoyment.

Ethical blind spots: explaining unintentional unethical behavior

People view themselves as more ethical, fair, and objective than others, yet often act against th... more People view themselves as more ethical, fair, and objective than others, yet often act against their moral compass. This paper reviews recent research on unintentional unethical behavior and provides an overview of the conditions under which ethical blind spots lead good people to cross ethical boundaries. First, we present the psychological processes that cause individuals to behave unethically without their own awareness. Next, we examine the conditions that lead people to fail to accurately assess others' unethical behavior. We argue that future research needs to move beyond a descriptive framework and focus on finding empirically testable strategies to mitigate unethical behavior.

Overcoming the outcome bias: Making intentions matter

People often make the well-documented mistake of paying too much attention to the outcomes of oth... more People often make the well-documented mistake of paying too much attention to the outcomes of others' actions while neglecting information about the original intentions leading to those outcomes. In five experiments, we examine interventions aimed at reducing this outcome bias in situations where intentions and outcomes are misaligned. Participants evaluated an individual with fair intentions leading to unfavorable outcomes, an individual with selfish intentions leading to favorable outcomes, or both individuals jointly. Contrary to our initial predictions, participants weighed others' outcomes more—not less—when these individuals were evaluated jointly rather than separately (Experiment 1). Consequently, separate evaluators were more intention-oriented than joint evaluators when rewarding and punishing others (Experiment 2a) and assessing the value of repeated interactions with these individuals in the future (Experiment 2b). Third-party recommenders were less outcome-biased in allocating funds to investment managers when making separate evaluations relative to joint evaluations (Experiment 3). Finally, raising the salience of intentions prior to discovering outcomes helped joint eval-uators overcome the outcome bias, suggesting that joint evaluation made attending to information about intentions more difficult (Experiment 4). Our findings bridge decision-making research on the outcome bias and management research on organizational justice by investigating the role of intentions in evaluations. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Family Rituals Improve the Holidays

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2016

Behavioral insights for minimizing loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic

Behavioral Science & Policy

Impression (Mis)Management: When What You Say Is Not What They Hear

Current Opinion in Psychology

Self-promotion is common in everyday life. Yet, across seven studies (N = 1,672) examining a broa... more Self-promotion is common in everyday life. Yet, across seven studies (N = 1,672) examining a broad range of personal and professional successes, we find that individuals often hide their successes from others and that such hiding has harmful relational consequences. We document these effects among close relational partners, strangers, and within hypothetical relationships. In Study 1, we find that targets feel less close to and more insulted by communicators who hide rather than share their successes. Conversely, sharing success increases closeness, despite also triggering envy. In Study 2, we find that hiding is more costly than sharing success, even when the target does not learn about the act of hiding. That is, hiding success harms relationships both when the success is eventually discovered and when it is not. In Studies 3 and 4, we explore the mechanism underlying these interpersonal costs: Targets infer that communicators have paternalistic motives when they hide their succes...

Humblebragging: A Distinct—and Ineffective—Self-Presentation Strategy

Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent... more Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent on others' impressions. We identify and offer the first empirical investigation of a prevalent, yet under-studied, self-presentation strategy: humblebragging. Across 9 studies, including a week-long diary study and a field experiment, we identify humblebragging— bragging masked by a complaint or humility—as a common, conceptually distinct, and ineffective form of self-presentation. We first document the ubiquity of humblebragging across several domains, from everyday life to social media. We then show that both forms of humblebragging— complaint-based or humility-based—are less effective than straightforward bragging, as they reduce liking, perceived competence, compliance with requests, and financial generosity. Despite being more common, complaint-based humblebrags are less effective than humility-based humblebrags, and are even less effective than simply complaining. We show that people choose to deploy humblebrags particularly when motivated to both elicit sympathy and impress others. Despite the belief that combining bragging with complaining or humility confers the benefits of each strategy, we find that humblebragging confers the benefits of neither, instead backfiring because it is seen as insincere.

Humblebragging: A Distinct—and Ineffective—Self-Presentation Strategy

Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent... more Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent on others' impressions. We identify and offer the first empirical investigation of a prevalent, yet under-studied, self-presentation strategy: humblebragging. Across 9 studies, including a week-long diary study and a field experiment, we identify humblebragging— bragging masked by a complaint or humility—as a common, conceptually distinct, and ineffective form of self-presentation. We first document the ubiquity of humblebragging across several domains, from everyday life to social media. We then show that both forms of humblebragging— complaint-based or humility-based—are less effective than straightforward bragging, as they reduce liking, perceived competence, compliance with requests, and financial generosity. Despite being more common, complaint-based humblebrags are less effective than humility-based humblebrags, and are even less effective than simply complaining. We show that people choose to deploy humblebrags particularly when motivated to both elicit sympathy and impress others. Despite the belief that combining bragging with complaining or humility confers the benefits of each strategy, we find that humblebragging confers the benefits of neither, instead backfiring because it is seen as insincere.

Humblebragging: A Distinct And Ineffective Self-Presentation Strategy

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent... more Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent on others' impressions. We identify and offer the first empirical investigation of a prevalent, yet understudied, self-presentation strategy: humblebragging. Across 9 studies, including a week-long diary study and a field experiment, we identify humblebragging-bragging masked by a complaint or humility-as a common, conceptually distinct, and ineffective form of self-presentation. We first document the ubiquity of humblebragging across several domains, from everyday life to social media. We then show that both forms of humblebragging-complaint-based or humility-based-are less effective than straightforward bragging, as they reduce liking, perceived competence, compliance with requests, and financial generosity. Despite being more common, complaint-based humblebrags are less effective than humility-based humblebrags, and are even less effective than simply complaining. We show that people choose to deploy humblebrags particularly when motivated to both elicit sympathy and impress others. Despite the belief that combining bragging with complaining or humility confers the benefits of each strategy, we find that humblebragging confers the benefits of neither, instead backfiring because it is seen as insincere.

Vicarious Contagion Decreases Differentiation – and Comes with Costs

Bounded awareness: Implications for ethical decision making

In many of the business scandals of the new millennium, the perpetrators were surrounded by peopl... more In many of the business scandals of the new millennium, the perpetrators were surrounded by people who could have recognized the misbehavior, yet failed to notice it. To explain such inaction, management scholars have been developing the area of behavioral ethics and the more specific topic of bounded ethicality—the systematic and predictable ways in which even good people engage in unethical conduct without their own awareness. In this paper, we review research on both bounded ethicality and bounded awareness, and connect the two areas to highlight the challenges of encouraging managers and leaders to notice and act to stop unethical conduct. We close with directions for future research and suggest that noticing unethical behavior should be considered a critical leadership skill.

Family Rituals Improve the Holidays

Rituals are central to family life. Three studies (N 5 1,098) tested the relationship between fam... more Rituals are central to family life. Three studies (N 5 1,098) tested the relationship between family rituals and holiday enjoyment and demonstrated that family rituals improve the holidays because they amplify family closeness and involvement in the experience. In study 1, participants who reported having family rituals on Christmas were more likely to spend the holiday with family and to enjoy the holiday more. Moreover, while simply spending the holiday with family was associated with greater enjoyment, enacting a ritual while with family added significantly to that enjoyment. Study 2 replicated these findings for family rituals pertaining to a secular holiday, New Year's Eve. Study 3 used an experimental design and had participants either describe their rituals and then report their holiday enjoyment (as in studies 1 and 2) or report their holiday enjoyment and then describe their rituals; in both conditions, being with family and enacting a ritual was associated with the greatest enjoyment, suggesting that it is having enacted rituals—and not merely reflecting on them—that enhances enjoyment. Participants were unlikely to engage in individual rituals (i.e., on their own without family involvement), and when they did, individual rituals were not associated with holiday enjoyment. In sum, three studies consistently demonstrate that family rituals on holidays are associated with feelings of closeness and greater intrinsic interest, leading to holiday enjoyment.

Ethical blind spots: explaining unintentional unethical behavior

People view themselves as more ethical, fair, and objective than others, yet often act against th... more People view themselves as more ethical, fair, and objective than others, yet often act against their moral compass. This paper reviews recent research on unintentional unethical behavior and provides an overview of the conditions under which ethical blind spots lead good people to cross ethical boundaries. First, we present the psychological processes that cause individuals to behave unethically without their own awareness. Next, we examine the conditions that lead people to fail to accurately assess others' unethical behavior. We argue that future research needs to move beyond a descriptive framework and focus on finding empirically testable strategies to mitigate unethical behavior.

Overcoming the outcome bias: Making intentions matter

People often make the well-documented mistake of paying too much attention to the outcomes of oth... more People often make the well-documented mistake of paying too much attention to the outcomes of others' actions while neglecting information about the original intentions leading to those outcomes. In five experiments, we examine interventions aimed at reducing this outcome bias in situations where intentions and outcomes are misaligned. Participants evaluated an individual with fair intentions leading to unfavorable outcomes, an individual with selfish intentions leading to favorable outcomes, or both individuals jointly. Contrary to our initial predictions, participants weighed others' outcomes more—not less—when these individuals were evaluated jointly rather than separately (Experiment 1). Consequently, separate evaluators were more intention-oriented than joint evaluators when rewarding and punishing others (Experiment 2a) and assessing the value of repeated interactions with these individuals in the future (Experiment 2b). Third-party recommenders were less outcome-biased in allocating funds to investment managers when making separate evaluations relative to joint evaluations (Experiment 3). Finally, raising the salience of intentions prior to discovering outcomes helped joint eval-uators overcome the outcome bias, suggesting that joint evaluation made attending to information about intentions more difficult (Experiment 4). Our findings bridge decision-making research on the outcome bias and management research on organizational justice by investigating the role of intentions in evaluations. Published by Elsevier Inc.