The Big Idea: why you shouldn’t be afraid of being a mess

We fear others’ judgment, but the evidence tells us that the things which cause us shame can make us more likable

We all carry some secrets that we would rather not share with the people around us. In much the same way that we may only invite visitors into the “good rooms” of our house while the rest is an absolute tip, we often hide the chaos of our personal lives behind a polished facade. This may be a serious mistake, since it’s precisely those vulnerabilities that can offer rich opportunities to bond with the people around us.

This is sometimes known as the “beautiful mess effect”, and one striking example of it playing out in the public sphere is in the life of Diana, Princess of Wales. At the time, even her harshest critics would have admitted that she had an incredible capacity to connect with people. And the widespread admiration for her seems to have arisen because of her vulnerabilities, rather than in spite of them. In her controversial BBC Panorama interview in 1995, for example, she discussed her husband’s infidelities, but also her struggles with mental health and her love affairs. Many of Diana’s detractors believed that she had provided the material for her own character assassination, but Diana’s popularity soared in the days after the interview, with the Daily Mirror reporting that an astonishing 92% of the public supported her appearance on the programme.