Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing

Why It Matters

Recognizing the strategic value of disclosure helps organizations build trust, make better hiring choices, and reduce employee stress, directly impacting performance and retention.

Key Takeaways

• Undersharing harms trust more than occasional oversharing in workplaces.
• Revealing personal info activates brain's reward centers, boosting satisfaction.
• People prefer candidates who disclose over those who withhold information.
• Expressive children show lower physiological stress than restrained peers, study finds.
• Strategic sharing balances relational gains with risk of social cringe.

Summary

The Harvard Behavior Insight Group hosted a conversation around Leslie John’s new book, Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing. John, a Harvard Business School professor, reframed her original focus on the dangers of oversharing to explore the hidden costs of undersharing—when people withhold personal information in professional and personal contexts.

Three empirical strands underpin her argument. First, a joint study with Mike Norton and Kate Barz showed that, when faced with a choice between a “revealer” who admits an undesirable fact (e.g., past STDs) and a “concealer” who refuses to answer, participants consistently preferred the revealer in dating and hiring scenarios, interpreting disclosure as a signal of trust. Second, fMRI work by Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell revealed that self‑disclosure lights up the brain’s pleasure centers, indicating an intrinsic reward for openness. Third, developmental research on preschoolers demonstrated that children who freely expressed fear showed lower galvanic skin response, suggesting that emotional expression reduces physiological stress—a pattern that later diverges by gender as boys are socialized to conceal.

John’s anecdotes illustrate the tension between immediate social cringe and long‑term relational payoff. She recounts how a colleague’s harsh feedback saved her from a misguided “oversharing” manuscript, and how her own TMI moments, though awkward, often earned respect and future trust. Mike Norton adds that negative feedback from oversharing is salient, while the absence of feedback from undersharing is invisible, leading to systematic under‑disclosure.

The implications are clear for leaders, recruiters, and policy makers: fostering environments where safe, purposeful disclosure is encouraged can strengthen trust, improve hiring decisions, and enhance team cohesion. At the same time, individuals must calibrate sharing to avoid genuine breaches of privacy. Balancing these forces unlocks the relational benefits of openness without incurring the social costs of excess.

Original Description

What does it really mean to share “too much,” and could oversharing, when done right, be a powerful tool for building trust, deepening relationships, and shaping decisions?

Watch this recording of a virtual book talk with Leslie K. John, Harvard Business School Professor and author of Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing. She is in conversation with Michael I. Norton, Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and Todd Rogers, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and faculty director of the Behavioral Insights Group.

Drawing on cutting-edge behavioral science research, the conversation explores when, why, and how sharing personal information can foster connection, increase influence, and improve communication, while also illuminating the boundaries and risks of disclosure in professional and personal contexts.

Bringing together leading voices in psychology and behavioral science, this discussion offers both rigorous insights and practical takeaways for leaders, organizations, and anyone navigating communication in an increasingly transparent world.