"Swagger and Bragging", Prof. Jaimie W. LIEN, Center for Economic Research, Shandong University

Title：Swagger and Bragging
Speaker：Prof. Jaimie Wei-Hung  LIEN, Center for Economic Research, Shandong University
Date：December 16, 2025 (Tuesday)
Time：14:00 - 15:00
Venue：T7-106-R1

Abstract:

An individual's public declarations to others about what they have done, or plan to do, are a potentially powerful source of individual motivation. We examine the influences of two types of boasting, swagger (ex-ante declaration of future goals) and bragging (ex-post declaration of accomplishments), in a series of laboratory experiments. Our experimental design allows observation of the effects of both private declarations and public ones with social media-style peer approval. We observe that different types of opportunities to boast significantly affect performance outcomes, but not always in a positive direction. Overall, our study demonstrates a significant effect of boasting on outcomes, while the explanatory factors behind social approval mechanisms can be complex.

Speaker:

Jaimie W. Lien is University Distinguished Professor at Center for Economic Research, Shandong University, and serves as the Co-Director for the Center for Research on Experimental and Theoretical Economics (CREATE). Dr. Lien received her B.A in Economics and Mathematics from Wellesley College, M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from University of California, San Diego. She was awarded International Excellent Young Scientist of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. She has served as Guest Editor and Editorial Board Member for international academic journals such as North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Scientific Reports and International Journal of Finance and Economics.

Her main research fields are behavioral economics, experimental economics and applied microeconomics, focusing on behavioral phenomena including cooperation and reciprocity, reference-dependence, present-bias and representativeness bias. She has served as Principal Investigator on projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education, and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council. Her research has been published in international journals including Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences, American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings), Economic Journal, Games and Economic Behavior, Experimental Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Economic Inquiry, and others.