A Pain Halved; A Joy Doubled: How We Share with Those Who Matter

In this dissertation I will present disclosure strategies that are used to communicate experiences of pain and joy, as well as their implications for people’s concepts of the self and interpersonal relationships. I conducted 58 semi-structured interviews where I collected information about my participants’ confidants and disclosure practices to explain how people share pain and joy within their networks. In the first half of the dissertation, I present descriptive statistics and general patterns. For instance, my participants discussed a wide array of topics with an average of 5 people, and yet tended to compartmentalize to some extent, mostly sharing health matters with family and relationship matters with friends. Mothers are the go-to person (especially for young women), but people also tell personal news to strangers and others who just happen to be nearby. Most of the times like chooses like, but when emotions are involved, men will seek out women.
In the second half of the dissertation analyze my respondents’ experience with sharing, as well as responding to pain and joy. I identify four strategies that were used when disclosing emotions: moderation (altering the intensity or amount of emotion shared), concealment (hiding the emotion), matching (reaching out to people with similar experiences), and branching out (disclosing to people outside of one’s network of confidants). Strategies are not chosen rationally, with a clear end in mind. Instead, they are sets of adaptations that allowed my study participants to navigate their networks and changing selves. Occasionally the strategies succeed in maintaining homeostasis within relationships, but just as often they do more harm than good and contribute to resentment and misunderstanding.
In conclusion I highlight the strengths of this study as a foray into meta-feelings and meta-thoughts that reveal fractured and sometimes incongruent attitudes around pain and joy. I also outline avenues for future work that can trace more precisely how disclosure is perceived by others and whether impressions match intents.

本论文将阐述用于传递痛苦与愉悦体验的情绪披露策略，及其对人们自我认知与人际关系观念的影响。本研究开展了58项半结构化访谈，收集受访者的密友圈与情绪披露行为相关信息，以阐释人们如何在社交网络中分享痛苦与愉悦情绪。
论文第一部分将呈现描述性统计结果与整体规律。例如，受访者平均会向5人分享各类话题，但在一定程度上存在话题区隔现象：多数人会向家人谈及健康议题，向朋友探讨情感关系问题。母亲是首选倾诉对象（尤其对于年轻女性而言），但人们也会向陌生人或恰好在场的他人透露私人消息。多数情况下人们倾向于寻找同类倾诉者，但当涉及情绪需求时，男性会倾向于向女性寻求支持。
论文第二部分将分析受访者的情绪分享经历，以及他们对他人痛苦与愉悦的回应方式。本研究归纳出四类情绪披露策略：适度调整（即调整分享情绪的强度或信息量）、隐瞒（即隐藏自身情绪）、同类匹配（即向有相似经历的对象倾诉）、拓展倾诉圈（即向密友圈以外的人群披露情绪）。这些披露策略并非基于理性考量且带有明确预设目标而选择，而是受访者为适配自身社交网络与不断变化的自我而采取的一系列适应方式。此类策略有时能够维系人际关系的动态平衡，但更多时候反而弊大于利，催生怨恨与误解。
结论部分将阐述本研究的学术价值：作为首次针对元情绪与元认知的探索性研究，本研究揭示了人们围绕痛苦与愉悦所存在的割裂且有时不一致的态度。同时，本研究也为未来研究指明方向：可进一步精准探究他人对情绪披露的感知方式，以及他人形成的印象是否与倾诉者的初衷相符。