Men are less eager and likely to share negative information than women, according to a new study by Carnegie Mellon University, Bayes Business School, and Bocconi University. However, the disparity is negligible with regard to positive news.
According to the authors, this could be because men are more concerned with how others perceive them, which leads them to self-promote by disclosing positive information about themselves while concealing negative experiences.
“The results from our studies revealed a consistent, and to the best of our knowledge not previously identified, nuanced pattern, wherein the tendency for women to disclose more than men depends crucially on the nature of the information shared,”
said first author Dr. Erin Carbone, Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. The findings can help make sense of the existing literature and clarify some existing stereotypes about gender differences in disclosure.
Information Valence
The majority of current research on gender inequalities in information sharing predates the internet. Given that we live in a world where people can submit information on a number of platforms on a regular basis, this new study provides insights into how we share in the digital age, as well as the implications of sharing.
The researchers conducted three independent studies with over 1,000 people to investigate gender variations in the sharing of various sorts of information. In the first study, participants self-reported occasions when they felt they were “dying” to share information with others, then indicated whether or not they did so.
Although men and women generated similar numbers of instances of wanting to share positive information (e.g., about a promotion), men were far less likely to report wanting to share negative information (e.g., a failure to receive a promotion). Two further studies enabled the team to quantify the desire to disclose and aggregate participants’ desire as well as their propensity to disclose positive or negative information about different topics and experiences.
Disclosure in the Digital Age
The study also found that women reported greater satisfaction than men with their own level of disclosure, whereas most male participants reported a greater propensity to withhold information about their thoughts and feelings even when it might have been better to share it with others.
“Disclosure is increasingly prevalent and permanent in the digital age. The advent of social media and digital communication channels has enabled unprecedented levels of information sharing, which is accompanied by an array of social and psychological consequences,
said Professor Irene Scopelliti, Professor of Marketing and Behavioral Science at Bayes Business School and one of the authors of the study.
The findings indicate that gender remains an important fault line when it comes to the desire and proclivity to disclose negative information, and men may be differentially benefited by, or vulnerable to, the consequences of information sharing when compared to women.
Abstract
Research on gender differences in (self-)disclosure has produced mixed results, and, where differences have emerged, they may be an artifact of the measures employed. The present paper explores whether gender – defined as self-identified membership in one’s sociocultural group – can indeed account for differences in the desire and propensity to divulge information to others. We additionally identify a possible moderator for such differences. In three studies employing two distinct research approaches – a free recall task for the extreme desire to disclose (Study 1, N = 195) and scaled responses to scenarios that manipulate valence experimentally in an exploratory study (Study 2, N = 547) and a preregistered replication (Study 3, N = 405) – we provide evidence of a robust interaction between gender and information valence. Male participants appear similar to female participants in their desire and likelihood to disclose positive information but are less likely than women to want to share negative information with others, and less likely to ultimately act on that desire. Men are reportedly more motivated than women to disclose as a means of self-enhancement, and self-reports reveal that women perceive their sharing behavior to be relatively normative, while men believe themselves to be more withholding than what is optimal. Information disclosure is increasingly pervasive and permanent in the digital age, and is accompanied by an array of social and psychological consequences. Given their disparate disclosing behaviors, men and women may thus be differentially advantaged by, or susceptible to, the positive and negative consequences of information sharing.
Reference:
- Erin Carbone et al. He said, she said: Gender differences in the disclosure of positive and negative information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104525