Editor's Note: The following article was translated and edited from an article that appeared in China Youth Daily. The article discusses how in a society in which morals are declining and pressure to succeed is mounting, China's youth feels compelled to brag and even lie about their abilities and achievements. Through an online survey, Chinese psychologists have been given a glimpse into the psychological reasons behind this tendency. By examining two cases of bragging, the article also gives us a better understanding of the origins of this issue.
As soon as the words "university reunion" are mentioned, Nanjing resident and employee in the finance section of a carpet company Li Qun, immediately looks irritated and fed up. Nowadays, university reunions have just become a "bragging convention", he tells the journalist: women compare their marriages and the men compare their income. One of his former classmates, a bank clerk in Beijing who landed the job only a year ago, had boasted that his annual income allowed him to buy an apartment in central Beijing. When Li visited his old classmate in Beijing some time later he discovered that the classmate had exaggerated his income and that his house was actually a rented small flat far away in the city's suburbs. "When all my former classmates do nothing but brag, it makes the whole thing awkward. Because of this, I always find excuses not to go to reunions."
When Bragging Backfires
Nowadays, an increasing number of people are complaining about the bragging tendencies of today's youth. Young people today brag about everything including but not limited to income, family background, and intellect. This issue was recently surveyed by the China Youth Daily Social Investigation Center on China Youth Daily's website and a public opinion website. The survey was able to reach 10,208 people and the results showed that 62.9% of the respondents feel that young people's fondness to brag is a serious problem, while 40.6% of those surveyed feel "opposed" to their bragging tendencies. Among those surveyed, 34.8% were born after the 1970s and 38.8% were born after the 80s.
Luo Qinghua who works at a company in Beijing, admits that he once bragged at a company event in front of his colleagues and bosses. During the event, he claimed that he had a friend at an airline company who could get him airline tickets to anywhere, anytime. The next week, his manager called Luo up, saying that some of his relatives wanted plane tickets to Guangzhou but that they were currently very difficult to get, could Luo help him out? Before Luo could respond, his manager added, "I'll wait for your update" and quickly hung up.
Of course, Luo never really had a friend at the airline company and realized that he had to bite the bullet and admit to the manager that he could not get tickets. "I really wanted to create a good impression," he said, "But now I've lost the trust of my manager; this bragging really blew up in my face!"
What young people brag about and why
What do young people like to boast the most? According to the China Youth Daily survey, most brag about "connections" (65.4%), followed by "income" (64.7%) and "consumption" (62.1%). Other areas include "family background" (54.2%), "personal experience" (44.5%), "marriage and relationships" (30.9%) and "knowledge of books" (26.0%).
Why do more and more young people love to brag? The top reasons fuelling this phenomenon seem to be "fickle social morals" (66.9%) and because "bragging can increase self-confidence and face" (59.5%). Another reason is that "bragging can give you an advantage in interpersonal relationships" (51.0%). Meanwhile, some thought that "if someone else boasts, I do it too," (28.2%). 19.5% of those surveyed believe that bragging isn't a phenomenon unique to today's youth, but that all people tend to brag when they're young, regardless of what generation they're from.
Compensating for lack of achievement
Zhang Lei, an introverted highschool student in Wuhan, doesn't stand out in class. However, whenever he meets his grandparents, he brags about being number one and that he's really popular with teachers and classmates. However, Zhang Lei says that he doesn't mean anything bad by this "exaggeration", he just uses it as a means to make up for his shortcomings and get positive attention from his family. "People who brag gain a sense of satisfaction, which reduces anxiety and builds self-esteem," he claims.
Director of Beijing Zhonghuiyue Counseling Center Li Jianzhong, pointed out that most young people boast in order to quickly get attention and recognition from others. At the same time, young people lack experience so they are not aware of the negative consequences of bragging and don't think twice about it.
"The increasingly utilitarian morals of society and growing pressures of everyday life have created a serious breeding ground for bragging," says Li Hongdong of the Heilongjiang Applied Psychology Associated. In the past, when evaluating a person's success, one looked at the person's individual achievements. Nowadays however, many people compare their success to others, focusing solely on other's wealth and connections and applying the same standard onto themselves. As a result, many people can't meet these expectations so they turn to bragging to compensate. "Nowadays, young people don't have a clear understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses and often incorrectly evaluate their social standing," Li noted. "When doing this, they compare their weaknesses to other people's strengths, which of course will lead to frustration. Many young people turn to bragging in order to fill this imagined shortcoming."
Source: China Youth Daily
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Keywords: China’s youth bragging Why Chinese brag why China’s youth boast decline in social morality China
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It's not big question. In all cultures there are social levels where people brag a lot. "High class" people never brag. In China especially.
Talking about Gold.. Everybody loves it more than God.
Aug 27, 2012 18:57 Report Abuse
I agree with many of the commenter’s here that bragging, while obnoxious behavior, is quite different from straight-out lying. While it’s nice that China is beginning to recognize all these problems, it is certainly not just a China problem. It is a worldwide problem for many decades and probably attributed to moral degradation and lack of parental supervision.
Checkout an April 2, 2002 CNN article; “Survey: Many students say cheating is OK”. Sorry, echinacities will not allow me to publish the Link. For those of you with too little time to find this short article, I will give you the short and skinny;
“A national survey by Rutgers' Management Education Center of 4,500 high school students found that 75 percent of them engage in serious cheating.- More than half have plagiarized work they found on the Internet.- Perhaps most disturbing, many of them don't see anything wrong with cheating: Some 50 percent of those responding to the survey said they don't think copying questions and answers from a test is even cheating.”
WOW! Maybe the CNN article’s title should be, “Most students say cheating is OK”. Yep, this is the “Good ‘Ole USA”! Certainly not the country I was born over fifty years ago.
I am confident this problem is even worse a decade after this article was written. We’ve heard all the BS excuses in America or China like; I must get into the best university to have a chance for the best jobs, my parent’s will kill me if I fail this test or exam, no problem… everyone else is cheating, etc. All BS excuses for morally corrupt people. It is not a matter of religion.
The blame MUST be placed squarely on the shoulders of Chinese and American parents who promote this thinking, place unwarranted pressure on their children to be #1 and support this behavior at all cost.
In China, if little Suzy Wong is caught cheating, the parents just pass the red envelope to the teacher and/or headmaster. Problem solved…for now. How can Suzie be failed? She’s our retirement plan! Then Suzie goes on to a Chinese university and sleeps in class or parties all night. Then based on her parents constantly bailing her out of trouble or paying university staff money and subsequently receiving good grades, she gets a good job in a multinational company. Here is often where the Buck stops. Suzie is then unable to perform her job to standards and she is fired. Her parents can do nothing. Oh sh*t daddy, there goes our retirement plan!
In America, it’s more about lazy parents and their lazy spoiled kids who often have NO study ethic and look for the easy way. I say, don’t spread your Crotch Fruit if you’re not willing to give your children a proper upbringing. American schools have been bullied for several generations by parents threatening lawsuits against schools when their little Johnny is caught cheating or is simply an unruly rotten piece of crap that should be suspended.
Finally, foreigners in China also need to look in the mirror. How many are teaching here on fake diplomas and TESOL certificates made in China, Thailand, etc. They see absolutely nothing wrong with this. Even foreign companies like a well-known British Hong Kong CLT company I worked for years ago suggested getting a fake TESOL for a trainer who refused to get a legitimate TESOL required by the company HR Manager where he would do the training. The Managing Director stated “No problem. I can get a TESOL made in Thailand.” Totally morally bankrupt!
Unfortunately, there seems to be no end in sight.
Aug 24, 2012 23:40 Report Abuse
What sort of answers do expect of the generation that has been told that they are right to question? They wouldn't know squat, their coin has one side, so their thoughts are really rubbish brought about by their socialistic education system, yes you western Chomskys!!, I am talking about you!! stupid morons who have taught you and you can't seem to see their mistakes because you are western, you are the man, you know how to.
You have left University to preach your ideals across the world, you know, you know!! As they say what goes around, comes around....good luck
Aug 20, 2012 05:41 Report Abuse
So tell me, how would you be able to determine if they are 'good' parents or 'bad' parents without some moral ruler by which to make such a judgment?
Aug 19, 2012 20:40 Report Abuse
and may I ask what it takes to be a good parent? what makes parents good or bad? what is the core of morality? who and what defines good and bad? whenever you meet or find what u call "GOOD PARENTS" just get closer enough to know why and how they became good parents.
Aug 19, 2012 20:53 Report Abuse
wow!!!!!!. there is more to religion than catholicism? only people without understanding think religion divides ignoring the fact that everything is corruptible by people.
suffice it to say that if bad people rule then evil abounds but there is much peace and prosperity if good people are in power: must we tear down all systems of government because of bad governance for the same reason of people existing before the introduction of government system?
religion is just like gun or any bomb............its very useful and indispensable to any modern society , yet when it falls in the wrong hands it can be fatal and catastrophic.
Aug 20, 2012 02:59 Report Abuse
Wow that is some very disgusting, highly bigoted and really quite vicious insults you have for Catholics.
If you lived the way of Catholics you would absolutely never 'fiddle boys' which is an outrageous anti-Catholic sin. You would not be 'hoarding money' but rather being the worlds largest GIVER of money, time and prosperity in the form of charities,
and,
No, if you were a good Catholic most definitely would NOT believe that any of those anti-catholic actions were 'OK' because you can make an 'incantation'.
But you want to find morality in logic. Yes, well we already touched on this. You will have to find 'moral relativism'. It may very well be 'logical' to put mentally retarded children and old people in 'Dementia' into gas chambers. Aborted babies would benefit society as well as making gloves out of their skin and selling at high profits.
But then again, that might just be 'good' for your society at that given time benefiting the most people and therefore you.
In Japan it may be 'logically beneficial to their society' to take over Jilin Province and build the next '511' medical research facility out of Chinese prisoners.
Logically, this would benefit them the most overall. And so logically, without a 'god' or any kind of 'external ruler' it may very well be that majority decides that its 'good' to have a 60,000 watch, BMW this week while having that change or be 'less good' next year.
And I do suggest you reconsider making vicious hate speech against groups of people. I mean criticism is one thing but entirely hateful, clearly hateful lies and insults is really pushing the limit here.
Aug 20, 2012 03:27 Report Abuse
It seems then, that ALL religion is in the hands of very bad people.
Aug 23, 2012 07:50 Report Abuse
These people are just copying virtually every other consumer orientated country in the so called developed world. Since the advent of the consumer society people have always aspired to 'keep up with the Jones' as we say in the UK. The more you consume the more you want and the easier it is for manipulating advertising to encourage you to buy buy buy. We've come to the point now that we have so much 'stuff' that we need to 'declutter' in order to make room for more 'stuff'.
If this behaviour takes over in China then there won't be enough 'stuff' for the rest of us.
Aug 19, 2012 10:35 Report Abuse
What a great and relevant article. I have not only noticed this but been amazed by the scale and astonishing depth of this 'compensation' in China and now it's a significant part of my own life as I am married to a Chinese gal who could stand as a prime example in the study.
Even more amazing to me was an evening with a group of relatively wealthy Chinese student from Hebei. They had no other conversation but listing status attained, brand names, who's car was the most expensive and what they could buy.
And its worse than that. The only other conversation was deciding what others cars, watches or homes were 'not worth' and why they were lower status. What University degrees were deemed less admirable.
Forbid a rival had made the unforgivable sin of buying and bragging of an inferior product - they would laugh and mock him or her for hours.
And yes, this has everything to do with a moral and religious 'vacuum'. Where there is no objective truth, no external rule to aim for, no such thing as 'spiritual character' to attain and what is 'morality'? Well it must be what is relative to another.
Ultimately, in the end there is nothing else but 'materials' and all of man's age-old issues of guilt, justification, forgiveness, sanctification must (somehow?) be found through... social status, degrees, relative earnings, brands, wealth identifications, savings.
What else is there? Nothing.
and so you must justify yourself this way. And bragging is neither 'wrong or right' anyways. Its just 'truth as you make it'.
It really makes me sad. I love China and by and far I see this as a massive weakness in Chinese culture and society. A massive spiritual vacuum and there is no horrifying end of problems it may yet cause. Materialism alone simply CANNOT work and not for long.
I appreciate this article. You know there is the saying 'The Elephant in the Room' but even less acknowledged is the 'Elephant Sized Hole' in the room. Its not often pointed out what is 'Not There' and yet it is indeed a massive void of highly significant proportions.
Aug 19, 2012 09:39 Report Abuse
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