Computer-mediated communication is becoming an increasingly popular medium for mental illness self-disclosure. However, little is known about how observers respond to such disclosures (e.g., support or rejections). Using Facebook as a medium of communication, we experimentally examined how different depression disclosure posts can lead to different reactions from observers. In two experimental studies, we examined how (a) the self-presentation used in a depression disclosure on Facebook and (b) peers’ supportive responses to the disclosure impacted observers’ responses involving social support intention, empathy, social distance, and depression stigma. Participants in both studies (N = 679 and 1,280, respectively) were recruited from Amazon’s MTurk. They viewed a mock-up Facebook page in which two factors were manipulated: self-presentation of coping (good vs. poor vs. balanced coping) and peers’ supportive responses (present vs. absent). Participants then completed online surveys assessing outcome variables. Results showed that poor coping elicited greater support intention and social distance than good coping across two studies. Further, Study 2 (but not Study 1) showed that participants reported greater empathy and lower social distance when peer responses were present compared to when they were absent. Neither self-presentation nor peers’ responses impacted depression stigma in both studies. Our research is the first to experimentally examine observers’ reactions to mental illness disclosure posts on social media.

Depression is a common and debilitating mental illness that negatively impacts one’s mood, cognition, and physical functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), affecting more than one in 12 Americans (Brody et al., 2018). Computer-mediated communication (CMC) provides an increasingly fertile ground for disclosing mental illness and other stigmatizing information (e.g., Andalibi et al., 2016; De Choudhury...