The Good News You Didn’t Tell Your Friend

When Your Success Coincides With Someone Else’s Failure

Whether we share a success or a failure with someone depends on more than the significance of the event itself. The circumstances of the conversation matter just as much: when we choose to speak and who is listening. The same news can bring joy or cause discomfort. This becomes particularly apparent when someone else’s disappointment coincides with our own good fortune. A success we would otherwise mention without hesitation can suddenly become difficult to share.

The reasons people hide their successes, however, go beyond modesty or a reluctance to boast. The authors of a study published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes examined how people respond after a conversation partner first tells them about a success or a failure. After hearing about someone else’s setback, participants were much less likely to mention their own achievements and more willing to bring up similar failures. When the other person shared a success, participants found it easier to share their own good news.

Why Hiding Success Can Feel Like Protecting Someone Close

Participants were therefore most cautious when their success could stand in sharp contrast to the other person’s setback. In these situations, what matters is not only what happened, but also how the news will affect the other person. Sharing a similar setback can make someone feel less alone. Sharing an achievement, although there is nothing inherently inappropriate about it, may feel like a reminder of their failure.

This tendency was stronger when participants had a closer relationship with the person they were speaking to. That suggests that keeping quiet about success can be an attempt to spare someone further discomfort, rather than simply a way to avoid appearing boastful.

When a friend shares a failure, study co-author Irene Scopelliti explains:

Many of us choose to mention a related failure of our own, not to compete but to offer solidarity.

When Silence Starts to Hurt

Keeping quiet about our own success may come from concern for another person, but they may not interpret it that way. The authors of an article published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examined this gap between intention and reception. In their studies, participants evaluated situations in which someone had not told them about a personal or professional achievement. Those kept in the dark felt less close to the other person and were more likely to feel offended than those who received the good news directly.

When the news reaches them, they get very offended by it. It’s very, very insulting,

study co-author Ovul Sezer explains. They see the silence as an attempt to control their feelings.

The person left out may conclude that the other person assumed they could not handle envy or a painful comparison. A gesture intended to protect their feelings can instead seem like a decision made on their behalf and a sign of a lack of honesty. In this way, an attempt to protect someone’s feelings can itself become a source of tension in the relationship.

Relationships Need Room for Success and Failure

Conversations about successes and failures are more than an exchange of information. They also shape our sense of closeness and mutual understanding. Yet there is no simple division between situations in which we should talk about our success and those in which we should keep it to ourselves. Hiding success can be an expression of care, but it can also come across as distance or a lack of trust. Sharing good news openly can bring joy, while in some circumstances prompting unwanted comparisons.

Care can easily be mistaken for distance, and joy can give way to painful comparison. Relationships do not rest on shared disappointments alone. They also need room for another person’s success: room in which good news does not automatically become a reminder of our own failure.

Read this article in Polish: Trudniej mówić o sukcesie niż porażce. To nie tylko skromność