Confiding Secrets and Well-Being

Slepian, Michael L.; Moulton-Tetlock, Edythe

doi:10.31234/osf.io/dta8n

Cited by 5 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…Aside from how much people conceal their secrets, the more frequently their minds return to thoughts of their secrets, the more they report those secrets as hurting their well-being . This effect has been found across a diverse variety of secrets, multiple measures of well-being, and with multiple participant populations, including a multi-international sample hailing from 30 different countries (McDonald et al, 2020;Slepian, Greenaway & Masicampo, 2020;Slepian & Moulton-Tetlock, 2019). Cognitive preoccupation has been shown to be one of the clearest harms of secrecy (see also Davis et al, 2020;Maas et al, 2012;Slepian et al, 2015).…”

Section: F Repetitive Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…If a secret is of high significance, the mind should more frequently wander toward it. Indeed, there is empirical evidence for this link Slepian, Greenaway & Masicampo, 2020;Slepian, Kirby & Kalokerinos, 2020;Slepian & Moulton-Tetlock, 2019).…”

Section: Secrecymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The remainder of this section covers the many other reasons for why thoughts of secrets frequently come to mind. Secrets often concern important and personally relevant information that people need help with (Slepian & Kirby, 2018;Slepian & Moulton-Tetlock, 2019). Hence, people find value in engaging with thoughts of their secrets, in hopes of finding some path forward Slepian, Greenaway, & Masicampo, 2020).…”

Section: F Repetitive Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Tetlock, 2019). While concealment of secrets is less frequent than mind-wandering to secrets, the stakes may feel higher when concealing, as now the information could accidentally slip and be learned by the other person.…”

Section: Pathway 2: Concealment Contexts and Active Concealmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A process model of having and keeping secrets.

Slepian¹

2022

Psychological Review

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Secrecy is a common and consequential human experience, and yet the literature lacks an integrative theoretical model that captures this broad experience. Whereas initial research focused on concealment (an action a person may take to keep a secret), recent literature documents the broader experience of having a secret. For instance, even if a secret is not being concealed in the moment, one's mind can still wander to thoughts of the secret with consequences for well-being. Integrating several disparate literatures, the present work introduces a new model of secrecy. Rather than define secrecy as an action (active concealment), the model defines secrecy as an intention to keep information unknown by one or more others. Like any other intention, secrecy increases sensitivity to internal or external cues related to the intention. Critically, secret-relevant thoughts are cued in one of two broad contexts: (a) during a social interaction that calls for concealment, and (b) the situations outside of those social interactions, where concealment is not required. Having a secret come to mind in these two very different situations evokes a set of distinct processes and outcomes. Concealment (enacting one's secrecy intention) predicts monitoring, expressive inhibition, and alteration, which consumes regulatory resources and may result in lower interaction quality. Mind-wandering to the secret (when concealment is not required) involves passively thinking about the content of the secret. Engagement with these thoughts may lead to repetitive thinking and rumination, reflection on how one feels about the secret, efforts to cope, or specific plans for how to handle the secret. The model brings together a number of literatures with implications for secrecy, identity concealment, relationships, mind-wandering, coping, health and well-being.

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Section: F Repetitive Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Secrecymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: F Repetitive Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pathway 2: Concealment Contexts and Active Concealmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A process model of having and keeping secrets.

Slepian¹

2022

Psychological Review

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“…响以及原因和机制(e.g., Pennebaker, 1989;Larson & Christin, 1990;Brosschot & Thayer, 2004;Liu & Slepian, 2018), 并提出了应对这些消极影响的方式(e.g., Slepian & Moulton-Tetlock, 2019;Goncalo et al, 2015;Wismeijer et al, 2014…”

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Intentional concealment of personal information: Secrecy and its consequences and coping

Duan¹,

Sun²,

Sun³

2020

Adv Psychol Sci

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Keep the cat in the bag: Children understand that telling a friend’s secret can harm the friendship.

Liberman¹

2020

Developmental Psychology

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Secrets play a powerful role in human social relationships. Here, we examine the developmental trajectory of 3- to 10-year-old children’s (N = 630) expectations about (a) how relationships impact whether people will keep secrets, and (b) how relationships are impacted when a confidee keeps versus tells a confider’s secret. Sophisticated expectations about the role of secrets in relationship maintenance develop across childhood. In particular, school-age children (6- to 10-year-olds) expect friends to be more likely to keep each other’s secrets than nonfriends (Study 1), and expect that if a friend breaks this norm and shares his friend’s secret with a third-party, it will harm the friendship (Studies 2 and 3). These expectations were specific to inferences about secrets: school-age children did not expect that sharing (or keeping) a friend’s fact or surprise would impact the friendship strength (Studies 2 and 3). These findings did not hold for preschoolers (3- to 5-year-olds), who did not have clear expectations linking secret sharing to friendship strength. Taken together, our results indicate that by 6 years of age, children understand that social relationships can increase people’s obligations to keep each other’s secrets, and that failing to do so can harm the relationship.

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Confiding Secrets and Well-Being

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

A process model of having and keeping secrets.

A process model of having and keeping secrets.

Intentional concealment of personal information: Secrecy and its consequences and coping

Keep the cat in the bag: Children understand that telling a friend’s secret can harm the friendship.

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