The “beautiful mess” effect: other people view our vulnerability more positively than we do

“Vulnerability is courage in you and inadequacy in me” Brené Brown By Christian Jarrett Admitting mistakes, seeking help, apologising first, confessing one’s romantic feelings – all these kind of situations involve intentional expressions of vulnerability, in which we may fear being rejected or being judged negatively, yet we grit our teeth and go ahead anyway. According to a team of psychologists writing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology contrary to our worst fears, having the courage to show our vulnerability in these ways will often be rewarded. That’s because there is an intriguing mismatch in the way we take a more negative view of our own vulnerability than we do of other people’s – the researchers call this “the beautiful mess effect”. Anna Bruk and her colleagues at the University of Mannheim were inspired in part by Brené Brown’s book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead in which she argues, based on interviews she’s conducted and other qualitative evidence, that “we love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we are afraid to let them see it in us … Vulnerability is courage in you and inadequacy in me.” To find some experimental evidence to back up this idea, and to test a possible explanation, Bruk and her team conducted seven studies with hundreds of participants. The format for many was that ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Social Source Type: blogs