Relational Styles - Tell Me What You Boast Of

Arrogant relational styles refer to those who like to boast about what they lack whenever they have a chance. Their main goal is to stand out from the crowd. Ironically, they're often rejected in the end due to their self-importance. Psychologist Marcelo Ceberio tells us more about it in today's article.

Some people use narcissistic relational styles due to their low self-esteem. They boast about virtues and display values they don’t have just to get attention. Ironically, they usually boast about what they lack.

The result: they end up rejected because they only care about themselves and seldom take an interest in others. Let’s delve deeper into why people adopt arrogant relational styles.

Relational styles

Feeling devalued or having low self-esteem is one of the worse traits of a human being. Healthy self-esteem involves valuing, loving, and putting yourself first, without being selfish or self-interested. It’s also about understanding one’s own limitations and capabilities. Additionally, it’s about knowing what you can and can’t do. What are your strengths, resources, and weaknesses? In short, self-esteem is recognizing yourself sicerely.

Now, valuation is a process that metabolizes within your mind and emotions. It’s a self-reflective process that explores both your virtues and defects. Because you’re the one who must value yourself by reflecting on your personal values. If you do, you’ll be able to offer the best version of yourself.

Ostentatious types

Genuine appreciation is basically non-existent within ostentatious people. These people are proud, arrogant, falsely humble and/or modest, overrated, egotistical, braggy, ostentatious, and petulant. They belong to a special genus that’s constantly fighting for recognition. Thus, it’s a form of self-defense against their own strong feelings of inadequacy.

Such traits are forms of interaction that generate reactions in various contexts. They’re mechanisms contained within personal disability and to whom we could say the following: tell me what you boast of and I’ll tell you what you lack.

Boasters consciously believe they can do everything. However, this doesn’t mean they have healthy self-esteem; it’s pure self-idolatry. Of course, this is closer to pedantry and arrogance, but it could also indicate delusional behavior.

• These people feel omnipotent and better than others, so they monopolize every conversation, making themselves important, and, of course, making everything about them. Their monologues often begin with: “I think…”, “I did…”, or “If I were you….”. It all in spite of the fact that the subjects their interlocutors are referring to have nothing to do with these rather obnoxious types.
• The braggers also feel omnipotent, but they don’t show it through actions because they don’t have the capacity they claim to have. Thus, they say they can do everything but don’t act on it.

Arrogant and petulant

Arrogant people don’t just feel omnipotent but also overly value themselves and widely broadcast their personal values. They’re often boastful while devaluing and disparaging others.

These people truly believe they know everything and generally assume an asymmetrical position. They place themselves above others by subtly raising their chin to force others to lower their gaze. They speak as if they were presenting a college dissertation.

Braggy and ostentatious

There are also bluffers with a touch of pedantry. For example, they monopolize conversations during social gatherings and put themselves in charge of the various topics discussed in these gatherings. These people often have the ability to memorize facts they superficially read in mainstream magazines and can also remember some facts they heard watching the Discovery channel.

In addition, they’re quite seductive when they speak and seldom allow others to do so. This is ridiculous most of the time because they may actually argue about technical matters with an engineer. Or they might try to explain the unconscious mechanisms to a psychologist, teach a physicist about quantum physics, tell a biologist about the principles of cloning, teach international politics or marine biology, and even analyze current news. However, these aren’t indicators of wisdom, only ways to stand out in social gatherings.

This is one of the relational styles that’s often mitigated by humble actions. In fact, these people could even be greatly admired.

Relational styles – Proud and overrated

You could label some people as “proud”. But, the word is currently misused. For instance, it’s usually applied as a synonym for “pride”: “You’e so proud, who do you think you are!”

Being proud of who you are is one of the healthiest traits you can have because it’s synonymous with optimal and productive self-worth. It doesn’t imply that you think you’re better than others. It isn’t a measure that denigrates another, but instead, a personal estimate of what you’re worth.

Having pride doesn’t mean someone’s overvaluing themselves either. Overestimating is when a person rates themselves with a higher score than they have. An overestimator thinks they’re someone they’re not. As such, it’s a defensive position that conceals feelings of inner devaluation.

For example, someone doesn’t get a job because they want to get a job as a supervisor or manager without having any meaningful work experience. These people are convinced that they meet the requirements for that position and think that a minor position is denigrating and beneath them. They feel insulted and aren’t up for it. In fact, if they take a lower ranking position to what they aspire, they’re a part of the ineptitude they don’t want or don’t want others to notice. Thus, they’d rather not work than to accept such devaluation. They end up making excuses and blaming the social and economic policies of the country and saying that it’s hard to find a decent job.

Virtue signaling

Humbleness

Humble people are those who don’t boast or brag about their knowledge or skills. Many of them know they’re capable and yet don’t go around reminding others of how virtuous they are.

These are the kind of people who surprise us with their abilities as we would’ve never thought they had them in their repertoire. They’re a sort of Pandora’s box from which many resources emerge that just don’t fit the low profile they keep. However, truly humble people are much different from falsely modest types.

Relational styles – False modesty

Falsely modest people are those who openly display a humble profile and manage to make their interlocutor to boast and highlight the conditions they supposedly try to hide so that these are evident. That is, they’re not the ones who brag, it’s their communication partner who reveals what they, supposedly, don’t want to show.

This type has a particular way of boasting. They’re neither bluffs nor petulant, but selfishly modest. Thus, they show a vulnerable side that makes another realize how capable they are and yearn for their communication partners to rebel and reveal such potential.

All the members of this group are seemingly perfect, but they secretly hope to find the self-value they lack from within their relationships. Still, they’ll never admit to failing or making mistakes. They’re not eagerly focused on giving or helping others to receive recognition, though. As with any defensive mechanism rooted in an arrogant person’s perceived omnipotence, it clearly overlaps with their personal feelings of helplessness and inner devaluation, the same that seldom surface.

Insecurity

Usually, when insecure types connect with others, they do so through their intellect and reasoning. These people can easily monopolize a meeting with a sermon that has the sole purpose of hearing themselves and obtaining praise and value responses from their surroundings.

These ostentatious types are quick learners. But, as we mentioned above, they’re merely good at memorizing certain facts from experts from cultural TV or radio broadcasts. They can then skillfully develop them into subjects during public speaking.

These perfect people are, as such, deniers. Generally, perceived self-omnipotence is a defensive resource that works together with denial. They need to deny those traits that reveal their impotence and insecurity. Thus, they magically adopt an omnipotent, self-confident personality. Of course, this structure isn’t conscious and it’s not premeditated. Instead, it’s gradually cemented, increasingly hiding those dark feelings that make them feel vulnerable.

However, sooner or later, those mechanisms are what cause this kind of person to be gradually rejected. Initially, omnipotent people can be empathically eloquent and stand out from among their interlocutors to the extent that they repeat this attitude every chance they have. Thus, others begin to feel antipathy with this know-it-all and begin to reject them. It’s all directly proportional: the more they try to stand out, the more marginalized and devaluated they’ll end up.