City Research Online

Abstract

This paper examines how what people disclose about their successes or failures depends on what others have disclosed. We propose that these decisions are guided less by self-focused motives and more by a concern for how one’s words will affect the other person’s emotions. Across nine studies (N = 8,229, including preregistered experiments, 2,216 self-written responses, and 473 real conversation dyads), we find that responders are consistently more likely to disclose matching outcomes (e.g., failures in response to failures) than non-matching ones (e.g., failures in response to successes), but with two asymmetries not predicted by prior theories. First, responders are more likely to disclose matching failures (failures in response to failures) than matching successes (successes in response to successes). Second, when experiencing non-matching outcomes, responders are more likely to disclose failures in response to successes than they are to disclose successes in response to failures. These patterns reflect other-focused attempts to comfort those who have failed and avoid exacerbating their distress. Beyond whether they disclosed, responders also adjusted how they disclosed, for instance, softening success disclosures in response to failures with consolation or apologies. These effects generalized across domains (e.g., health, career, financial), across relationships varying in closeness and status, and emerged in choices between pre-written responses, self-generated responses, and live conversations involving actual interpersonal disclosures. Disclosure decisions were moderated by factors such as liking and domain relevance. By demonstrating that responders’ outcome disclosures are systematically shaped by concern for the wellbeing of others, this work reframes disclosure as an intended conversational tool for protecting others’ emotions rather than managing self-presentation.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	Disclosure, Success, Failure, Interpersonal Emotion Regulation, Social Utility, Consolation, Empathy, Social Support, Reciprocity, Conversation
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Faculty of Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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