Disclosure#

Who this is for#

Telling someone something about you they couldn’t have known otherwise.

For some of you a diagnosis. For others anxiety, a chronic illness, caring for someone at home, a learning disability, being the first in your family at university.

Research on several concealable identities, alongside autism-specific studies.

Disclosure can help — three routes#

• Relief from keeping something concealed
• Social support
• Changes in what other people know

Whether it helps depends partly on the discloser’s goal: moving towards something, or avoiding something.

And the research splits#

Observers rating first impressions: impressions were more positive when the diagnosis was accurately given than withheld. Raters who knew more about autism rated more favourably.

A review of 37 studies: a disconnect. Vignette studies of others’ perceptions found disclosure helped acceptance. Studies of autistic adolescents and adults found reluctance to disclose, expecting stigma.

And at work#

238 autistic adults describing disclosing at work: most had disclosed selectively, and just over a third rated the impact of telling supervisors and coworkers positively.

Where we were#

Week 9: how closeness paces, and the rate limit nobody published.

This week: the thing you might be pacing towards, and what telling somebody actually does.

Keep both options in view#

What might telling change? What is keeping something private currently buying or costing?

Anticipated stigma and distress#

300 people, holding 13 different concealable identities. Then 235 more.

Four predictors of psychological distress: anticipated stigma, centrality, salience, cultural devaluation.

Study 2: anticipated stigma and cultural stigma related directly to self-reported health.

What could a department change?#

Could making adjustments routine lower anticipated stigma for students who never disclose anything at all?

The request can be this small#

A fictional case: Rae asks for writing#

Rae wants written task instructions from a supervisor.

The feared reaction and the effort already spent are different entries.

In the room: price both columns (8 min)#

Use your own private situation or fictional Rae. Nothing personal is read out.

4 min: left, what telling might buy or cost; right, what keeping it private currently buys or costs. Mark observation, prediction or unknown.

2 min: circle a condition in either column that the institution could change without more personal information.

2 min: write a proposed change and how you would check whether it helped. Share only the proposal if you choose.

Levels, not a switch#

Disclosure of a psychiatric diagnosis, approached through what the gay and lesbian community worked out about coming out.

Costs: social avoidance and disapproval. Benefits: psychological well-being and interpersonal relations.

The paper ends with a review of levels of disclosure.

Here is the part nobody warns you about.

After you tell someone, they go back through everything. The tutorial where you didn’t laugh. The email that was too short. The party you left at nine.

They re-read all of it, and they decide what it meant, and they do not tell you they are doing it.

Sometimes this is a relief. A person who thought you were cold for three years understands, and something between you gets easier, and you wonder why you waited.

Sometimes you lose something. There was a version of you in their head — competent, or funny, or just unremarkable — and it is replaced by a version with an explanation attached.

You do not get to choose which one they keep. You do not get to take it back.

That risk is real and this course is not going to talk you out of it.

It is going to make sure you knew it was there.

Right. Mechanics.

The five audiences#

Needs, no labels#

“I process written instructions much better than verbal ones. Could you send the task in the chat as well?”

• “I think better if I can look away while I talk. It’s not that I’m not listening.”
• “Loud rooms cost me a lot. Can we meet somewhere quieter?”
• “I’ll answer better by email than on the spot. Can I get back to you tomorrow?”

Each names a need and what would help. None explains why.

The timing trap#

In the workplace survey, many disclosed on an application or after starting — rarely at interview. Many disclosed only after problems had already arisen.

The trap, and this part is the course’s own observation: a disclosure that arrives after a problem can be heard as an explanation of the problem.

An explanation can be mistaken for an excuse.

One option: needs before problems#

“Before we start: I work best with things in writing.”

An option at the first group meeting or in the first week of a job: make the need part of the working arrangements before a problem needs explaining.

Break#

14:55–15:05

Resume at 15:05.

The request can stand on its own#

Receiving a disclosure#

1. Thank them. “Thanks for telling me.”
2. Ask about the need, not the label. “Is there anything you’d like me to do differently?”
3. Don’t re-read out loud.

And one line to leave out entirely, however kindly meant: “you don’t seem like you have that”.

In the room: one audience, one sentence (7 min)#

Four minutes. Choose an audience for your own private situation, or fictional Rae asking a supervisor for written instructions. Write the actual sentence.

Two minutes. Now write what you’d say if it went badly. One line. Week 5’s repair, at a higher stake.

One minute. Hands up if the second line was harder to write.

When it goes badly#

All three return to the need, and out of the label.

Who was asked, and how#

The split isn’t noise. It’s who got asked.

In the room: what does the finding allow? (10 min)#

2 min, pairs: read the conclusions:

1. “Tell your employer: a diagnosis improved observers’ first impressions.”
2. “Quinn and Chaudoir measured how much distress stopping concealment removes.”
3. “A needs-only sentence guarantees an adjustment without the risks.”

3 min: identify each source or model, its actual outcome, and the added claim.

3 min: rewrite within the checked evidence, keeping a useful question or option.

2 min: compare with another pair. Have you kept ratings, workplace reports, distress predictors and untested scripts separate?

And the field noticed its own thumb#

The scoping review of 37 studies reported something about the literature itself: it tends to assume disclosure should happen.

What disability services actually needs#

They need to know what to put in place. That is a different question from what happened to you.

Ask first: “What adjustments can you arrange, and what do you need from me to arrange them?”

Then decide what to share — with the list in front of you instead of behind it.

In the room: receiving (6 min)#

1 min: read the fictional lines and checklist: thank, ask about the need, don’t re-read out loud.

• Rae: “I follow written instructions more easily. Could you put the task in the chat as well?”
• Dev: “Loud rooms cost me a lot. Can we meet somewhere quieter?”

2 min: A reads Rae; B answers in two sentences. A checks the steps; B can retry.

2 min: swap roles with Dev’s line. Both practise receiving.

1 min: each privately notes a step to remember. No personal disclosure is requested.

What this week added to the vocabulary#

• partial disclosure — the need without the label
• the five audiences — five transactions, not one decision
• the timing trap — configuration before the problem, an excuse after it
• anticipated stigma — what you expect would happen if people knew

Next week: interoperation, not conversion.

If time remains#

What could an institution change so that getting a usable adjustment requires less personal disclosure?

Optional discussion. Finish by 15:55.