Your friend just found out they didn't get the job they really wanted. Meanwhile, you have some exciting news of your own. Suddenly, announcing your good fortune doesn't seem like such a great idea. Sound familiar?

New psychology research suggests that we're often surprisingly careful about sharing our successes, especially when someone else is having a difficult time. And the reason might be rather sweet.

Sometimes We'd Rather Share Our Failures

When someone tells us about a disappointment, it's natural to want to make them feel better. Maybe we mention the time we were turned down for a job or admit that we've experienced something similar.

But, if things have been going well for us, we might want to keep that information to ourselves. That's the interesting behavior psychologists explored in a series of nine studies involving more than 8,200 people. They looked at how willing people were to share their own good or bad news after hearing about someone else's experience.

And a clear pattern emerged. People were much more comfortable sharing their own failures with someone who had also experienced a setback than announcing a success to someone who hasn't been so lucky.

Nobody Wants to Make a Friend Feel Worse

One experiment asked participants to imagine receiving the results of a health test. Some received good news, while others received disappointing results. Then, they learned that a colleague had received either a positive or negative result.

When both people had disappointing news, participants were very willing to share their own experience. But, when someone received bad news and the participant had good news, most preferred to keep quiet. The difference was striking:

• 87% were willing to share a failure with someone who had also failed.

• 70% were willing to share a success with someone who had also succeeded.

• Just 16% were willing to share a success with someone who had experienced a failure.

It wasn't necessarily about avoiding an awkward conversation. The researchers found that people were often trying to protect the other person's feelings.

We Even Change How We Tell Our Stories

Keeping quiet isn't the only way people handle these situations. Sometimes, we soften our good news.

Participants in other experiments were more likely to apologize or offer comforting words when sharing a success with someone who had experienced a setback. Some even waited until later in the conversation to mention their achievement.

Even when researchers paired people up for online conversations, the same general pattern emerged. People were more willing to discuss a shared disappointment than a shared success. It's an interesting reminder that we're often thinking about how our words might affect someone else.

Being Considerate Doesn't Always Mean Staying Quiet

Of course, there's another side to this. The researchers didn't examine whether withholding the good news really made the other person feel better.

It's possible that a friend might appreciate the consideration. But, they might also be hurt if they found out later on that their friend had deliberately hidden an important achievement.

The studies also focused on people from Western countries, so the findings might not apply to every culture. And there's a difference between postponing an announcement for a few hours and keeping wonderful news from someone indefinitely.

There's Room for Everyone's Good News

The next time a friend shares a disappointment, it's perfectly understandable to hold off on announcing your big win. Sometimes, being a good friend means giving someone else room to talk.

But, our happy moments deserve celebrating, too. Perhaps the trick is finding the right time to share them, without turning someone else's difficult day into a celebration of our own. And, when it's finally time to announce that promotion, hopefully our friends will be just as happy for us as we would be for them. 

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