Fibbing about your feelings: How feigning happiness in the face of personal hardship affects trust

Abstract

Individuals who experience personal distress face a dilemma when they enter the workplace: should they authentically express their negative emotions when conversing with colleagues, or feign happiness? Across six experiments, using face-to-face interactions, as well as video and scenario-based stimuli, we explore how feigning happiness in the face of personal hardship affects trust among colleagues. We find that individuals who feign happiness in professional contexts are more likely to be hired and are trusted more by others, despite also being perceived as more dishonest. Our results suggest that these trust benefits are unique to professional (rather than personal) contexts, and are driven by perceptions of resilience, rather than conformity to display rules. This research deepens our understanding of emotion regulation, authenticity, and trust by exploring the consequences of feigned happiness in mixed motive settings and by demonstrating that emotional misrepresentation, unlike many other forms of misrepresentation, can increase trust.