Disclosing Vulnerability on LinkedIn: Conditional Effects That Engender Perceptions of Vulnerability as Authentic or Performative

When a communicator discloses vulnerability online, how do audiences perceive the communicator? From an uncertainty reduction perspective, disclosing vulnerability reveals a core aspect of oneself and signals trust/liking towards the audience, who should perceive the communicator as more authentic and attractive. However, various scholars have argued that in the contemporary social media environment—and especially on LinkedIn—communicators display vulnerability solely to show a stark contrast between their past struggles and current successes. Therefore, it is a wholly performative act that entrenches the cult(ure) of confidence and (toxic) positivity online. Which of these perspectives do audiences have? This experiment found that vulnerability-and-success (vs. success-only) disclosures engendered greater perceived authenticity of the communicator, but not social attraction or task attraction. Experiential relatability and resilient vulnerability acceptance also moderated the effect of self-disclosure type on perceived authenticity and social attraction, respectively. Using hashtags (or not) in self-disclosures made no difference to audiences.