Before an important presentation, someone may say that they are not particularly well prepared. Before a match, a coach may cast the opposing team as the favourite. Before unveiling a project, its leader may caution against expecting too much. However, the presentation proves excellent, the team wins, and the project exceeds its announced ambitions. Satisfaction is greater because expectations were lower.
Such situations are familiar from everyday life. Sometimes they reflect genuine uncertainty, sometimes politeness, and sometimes a carefully considered communication tactic. The distinction lies in what the person knew before speaking. Did they genuinely doubt their abilities, or did they want others to doubt them?
The latter practice is known as sandbagging. It refers to deliberately understating one's abilities, potential, or anticipated performance to gain an advantage. More broadly, it involves concealing one's actual position to induce an inaccurate assessment by another party. Rather than highlighting our capabilities, we obscure some of them. We expect a weaker impression today to secure a more favourable position tomorrow.
This approach appeals because of how we evaluate success. We rarely assess an outcome independently of expectations. The same grade may delight one student and disappoint another. The same rate of business growth may appear either disappointing or highly impressive. Much depends on what was previously promised, announced, and accepted as the benchmark. Those who shape expectations also influence how people interpret outcomes.
Psychologists Bryan Gibson and Daniel Sachau examined sandbagging as a self-presentation strategy. Their findings associate the tendency to understate one's abilities with performance pressure. Individuals facing high expectations may attempt to lower others' expectations to make evaluation less burdensome. Subsequent research with colleagues also demonstrated the significance of being the favourite: this status itself can place an additional burden on some individuals.
The message "do not expect too much from me" may therefore express a need for self-protection. However, when we know that we are capable of more and deliberately present others with a different picture, we begin to manage their judgements.
From the sports field to the business meeting, this pattern takes various forms. Golf offers a clear example: players may misrepresent their playing ability to gain a more advantageous handicap. Here, understating ability directly affects the terms of competition. In other settings, the advantage is subtler: an opponent prepares less thoroughly, an evaluator relaxes their criteria, or an audience perceives an average outcome as an unexpectedly strong achievement.
Consider a business meeting. A team estimates that it can complete a project in three weeks but commits to a six-week deadline. If the additional time reflects genuine uncertainty, dependence on suppliers, and experience of potential delays, the estimate may be responsible. If, however, the deadline is deliberately doubled solely to make completion in the fourth week appear exceptionally efficient, the underlying intention is different. The client then evaluates performance against a benchmark adjusted in advance to favour the provider.
A similar mechanism can be envisaged in sales. A manager knows that several deals are close to completion but omits them when setting targets. Once those deals are finalised, performance appears substantially better than projected. The individual may gain recognition while the organisation receives a less reliable account of its own capabilities. What benefits an individual's image may undermine collective decision-making.
In politics, expectations are shaped before a candidate even appears on camera. Ahead of a debate, the candidate's team may emphasise the opponent's experience, rhetorical confidence, and media skills. They present their own candidate as someone for whom television is not a natural setting. The intention is to alter the criterion of success: a competent performance may then be sufficient to generate claims that the candidate exceeded expectations. This illustrates a possible pattern: concluding that a particular statement was manipulative requires examining its intention and circumstances.
In negotiations, sandbagging may involve appearing less prepared, understating one's interest, or concealing the strength of one's alternatives. Nevertheless, negotiators are not obliged to disclose every fallback option, reservation price, or internal assessment. Withholding information becomes ethically problematic when it is used deliberately to construct a false account of the facts on which the other party bases a decision.
Public relations practitioners are familiar with these communication settings. Product announcements, the presentation of business results, preparation for media appearances, and change communication all involve shaping expectations. The extent of our promises matters, as do how we describe our readiness and the criteria against which publics will later evaluate us. This is precisely why the familiar advice to "underpromise and overdeliver" requires careful consideration.
It is useful when it discourages exaggeration and unrealistic commitments. It becomes problematic when it legitimises systematically presenting capabilities as weaker than our own assessment suggests. A reasonable commitment and a deliberately misleading announcement may sound remarkably similar. The distinction emerges from the evidence, the rationale, and the intention.
Sandbagging draws on several communication skills. It requires understanding the audience, assessing its expectations, controlling self-presentation, and knowing when to release information. Its tactics may include selectively highlighting weaknesses, withholding favourable indicators, overstating obstacles, or setting an easily attainable target. Their common purpose is to ensure that subsequent performance is assessed against an artificially lowered initial estimate.
The same skills can support responsible communication. Understanding an audience enables clearer explanations. Assessing expectations helps correct unrealistic assumptions. Choosing the appropriate moment gives people sufficient time to prepare. A skill's professional value also depends on the purpose it serves.
Ethical scrutiny can begin with a straightforward question: would the other party make a different decision if they knew what we know? If so, the withheld information warrants serious consideration. A more uncomfortable question follows: could we convincingly justify our communication decision if its underlying intention became public?
The Public Relations Society of America's Code of Ethics emphasises accuracy, honesty, and avoiding deceptive practices. It also explicitly addresses omitting information that creates a misleading impression. This matters because deception does not require an individually false statement. Every assertion may be technically accurate while the overall picture remains misleading.
The long-term cost of sandbagging becomes apparent when audiences recognise the pattern. Clients begin to question deadlines. Management loses confidence in its teams' estimates. Journalists interpret cautious announcements as preparation for a predetermined narrative of success. When genuine uncertainty and justified concern subsequently arise, communicators may lack precisely what they need most: trust.
For public relations, this is central. In the short term, lowering expectations can influence impressions. Relationship quality, however, depends on how reliably others can place their confidence in our words. Professional expectations management therefore requires the ability to state clearly what we can promise, what remains unknown, and the basis of our assessment. Success is more credible when it holds up against honestly set expectations. A communicator's professional maturity is also reflected in the willingness to resist making that success appear artificially greater.
Recommended citation
Tomić, Z. (2026, November 4). Sandbagging. PRTOMIC. https://prtomic.com/articles/sandbagging/