New research
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by professors of business administration at Harvard University, Leslie K. John, Kate Barasz, and Michael I. Norton suggests that it is better to tell the truth than to avoid the question or provide a non-answer.
Researchers conducted a total of seven experiments to confirm their findings and performed several of the experiments more than once to see if the results would repeat themselves; which they did.
In one experiment participants in the study were asked how interested they would be in dating "a revealer", which is someone who answered all the questions on a questionnaire, "a hider" which is someone who answered "choose not to answer" on two questions, and an "inadvertent nondiscloser" who answered all the questions, but because of a computer glitch, not all the answers were available.
They concluded that participants were most interested in the revealer and least interested in the hider.
In a
conversation with Deborah Netburn of the Los Angeles Times, lead author John cautioned that her research did not imply that people should go around telling everyone all the bad things they've done. She said her study showed that when you are asked a direct question, and disclosure is expected, it's best to give an answer, even if that answer feels embarrassing.
"When people are forming an opinion of you and you care about that opinion, you may be prone to withholding information," she said. "But in fact, you would make a better impression if you came clean and divulged it."
(BartekSzewczyk / Getty Images/iStockphoto)