What came to mind first for me about this situation was this parable from Luke 14:

""" When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this person your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. """

Basically, it gives people the opportunity to vouch for you, which is good for social capital.

Interesting. That kind of reminds me of the "two tokens" approach to guiding customer service conversations in a favorable direction, where something has gone wrong.

They say that there are two tokens on the table at the start of any such interaction, one says "this is very serious" and the other labeled "it's not a big deal." If you are receiving a report of a problem from a customer, you are best advised to pick up the "very serious" token, as by signaling that you take the problem or issue reported most seriously, you can reassure the other person and alleviate their feelings of how serious it is for them.

Whichever token is picked up first, the other party will always take the other one. It is serious enough for them to call, so they will be appreciative if the service person who is responding clearly takes the matter very seriously. Even to the point of taking the opposite position, disarmed.

If you instead chose the other token, to signal with your speech that it's not a very big problem by saying for example "that's no problem at all," then you may get a very different response. "Well for me, it is a problem, and I need it resolved quickly." Instead of being disarmed, the person may feel a need to defend their reason for calling.

I got this from "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work"

If someone makes an effort to present themselves as extraordinarily competent I’ll start watching them to try and figure out whether it’s true. If they’re extraordinarily competent then there’s not much to conclude. If they’re just normal but exceedingly interested in looking competent, I know they’re self-promoters and not really trustworthy.

If they act normal and are of normal competence, then again there’s not much that you need to think about. If they’re very competent and act normal my guess is they can be trusted to give generally honest assessments of different situations without worrying too much about looking good.

Overt signals of competence are a huge red flag to me. I've been lucky enough to work with some brilliant people, and most of them seem like baffled slobs when one first meets them.

One who is especially talented may often have the appearance of not knowing what they are doing, if you watch them closely while they are learning the behavior of a system. I've seen it suggested that there is a certain pattern of inquisitive behavior that can be seen in this kind of person, that has almost the appearance of a "random walk."

This may appear to the untrained eye as incompetence, maybe imagine the dumbest possible way to navigate an interface, but in the thought process of someone who learns a thing inside and out, behaving in this way can actually promote a more complete understanding.

I mean to elaborate on the idea of "baffled slobs" – not sure if this is exactly what you meant.

Paraphrase of a quotation of some guy’s high school wrestling coach I read many years ago:

Dumb athletes are better at the start because they’ll just do what their coach tells them, but smart ones eventually overtake them as they figure things out.

If you don't see it coming when someone explains it, you definitely won't see it coming when it's not being forecast in a public forum.

underpromise -> overdeliver