How do you react when someone shares good news?

What this is

This is our own quiz, not a validated test. The four types come from a research framework for how people respond when someone tells them something good: actively or passively, constructively or destructively. That gives four combinations, and we gave each one a friendlier name. “Destructive” is the researchers’ word for the effect a response can have, not a verdict on anyone’s heart. Most people use all four, depending on the day and the news.

The research behind it

The framework comes from four studies published in 2004 by Shelly Gable and colleagues. In daily diaries kept by 154 students, and later by 94 more, people reported a better mood and more life satisfaction on days they told someone about their best event, beyond the effect of the event itself. Two couple studies, one with 59 dating couples and one with 89 married couples, found that only the enthusiastic, active-constructive style went with better relationships. The other three, including the quiet passive-constructive one, went with worse. In the second diary study, an enthusiastic response from the first person told added to the boost, while a disinterested one went with a worse day. All of this rests on people’s perceptions of how others responded, mostly students and couples in the United States, and the couple studies could not say which came first, the good response or the good relationship.

A later paper by Harry Reis and colleagues moved the idea into the lab, with four experiments and a diary study. When people shared good news and got an enthusiastic response, they valued the news more and came to trust the responder more, and that held with strangers as well as in close relationships.

What it cannot tell you

Your result is the style your answers picked most often; a tie goes to the type listed first. It says nothing about how much you care, only about what other people can see of it in the moment. Some news really does need a practical word at some point, and some people really do prefer a quiet reaction. When in doubt, ask. Your individual answers stay in your browser; with your consent, the site only counts which result comes up.