"Men Hide Negative Information on SNS... Women Have a Stronger Desire to Share"

No Gender Difference in Positive Information Disclosure
Men Tend to Hide Negative Information for Self-Promotion

A study found that men are less likely than women to share negative information about themselves on online communication channels such as social media (SNS).

Women Feel a Stronger Desire to Share Information

[Image source=Pixabay]

On the 6th, Erin Carbon, a visiting faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, published experimental results on the desire and behavior of information sharing in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, revealing these findings.

While the desire and behavior to share positive information showed little difference between men and women, the desire and behavior to share negative information appeared significantly less in men than in women.

The researchers analyzed that men may have a stronger tendency to promote themselves by sharing positive information and hiding negative experiences due to greater concern about how others perceive them.

In this study, the research team conducted three experiments with over 1,000 adults to examine gender differences in sharing various types of information.

In the first experiment, 193 participants (98 women, 95 men) were asked questions such as "Have you ever felt like you 'had to tell someone something to death'?" and "Did you eventually tell someone?" to investigate what kind of information they wanted to share.

Participants were then asked to select all the motivations that triggered a strong desire to share, and the proportions of men and women choosing each motivation were compared.

As a result, 161 people (83%) answered that they had experienced a strong desire to share information. The proportion of women who experienced this desire was 91% (89 people), much higher than men at 76% (72 people). Also, the actual rate of sharing information was twice as high among women compared to men.

The gender difference in the desire and behavior to share information varied greatly depending on the nature of the information. The desire to share positive information, such as a "promotion," was similar between men and women, but responses indicating a desire to share negative information, such as "promotion failure," were much lower among men than women.

Men Tend to Hide Information Even When They Should Share It

The researchers then conducted two additional experiments with 547 participants (287 women, 260 men) and 405 participants (188 women, 217 men) to quantify participants' desire to disclose information and investigate tendencies to disclose positive or negative information on various topics and experiences.

The results showed that women have a stronger tendency to share information even when it might be better not to, whereas men tend to withhold information even when they should share it.

Additionally, women showed higher satisfaction with their level of information disclosure compared to men. However, most male participants answered that they tend to hide their thoughts and emotional information even when sharing it with others might be better.

The researchers explained, "Men have a stronger motivation than women to disclose information as a means of self-development, and they suppress information disclosure more than the optimal level themselves. On the other hand, women perceive their sharing behavior as relatively natural."

They added, "In the digital age, information disclosure is becoming increasingly common and permanent, leading to various social and psychological outcomes. Considering gender differences in information disclosure behavior, the positive and negative effects resulting from it may also differ by gender."