Hiding Success (original) (raw)

Self-promotion is common in everyday life. Yet, across seven studies (N = 1,672) examining a broad range of personal and professional successes, we find that individuals often hide their successes from others and that such hiding has harmful relational consequences. We document these effects among close relational partners, strangers, and within hypothetical relationships. In Study 1, we find that targets feel less close to and more insulted by communicators who hide rather than share their successes. Conversely, sharing success increases closeness, despite also triggering envy. In Study 2, we find that hiding is more costly than sharing success, even when the target does not learn about the act of hiding. That is, hiding success harms relationships both when the success is eventually discovered and when it is not. In Studies 3 and 4, we explore the mechanism underlying these interpersonal costs: Targets infer that communicators have paternalistic motives when they hide their succes...