It takes two (or more): The social nature of secrets

Abstract

The lion's share of research on secrecy focuses on how deciding to keep or share a secret impacts a secret-keeper's well-being. However, secrets always involve more than one person: the secret-keeper and those from whom the secret is kept or shared with. Although secrets are inherently social, their consequences for people's reputations and social relationships have been relatively ignored. Secrets serve a variety of social functions, including (1) changing or maintaining one's reputation, (2) conveying social utility, and (3) establishing friendship. For example, if Beth has a secret about a past misdemeanor, she might not tell any of her friends in order to maintain her reputation as an outstanding citizen. If Beth does share this secret with her friend Amy, Amy could interpret this as a sign of trust and think that their friendship is special. However, Amy could also choose to share Beth's secret with the rest of the friend group to show that she is a useful member with access to valuable information about others. Attention to these social functions of secrets emerges from a young age, and secrets play a prominent role in human relationships throughout the lifespan. After providing an overview of what is currently known about the relational consequences of secrecy in childhood and adulthood, we discuss how social and developmental psychologists could work together to broaden our understanding of the sociality of secrets. Future steps include incorporating more dyadic and social network analyses into research on secrets and looking at similar questions across ages.

The bright side of secrecy: The energizing effect of positive secrets.

“…This insight reveals something fundamental about the motivational underpinnings of secrecy. Given that having a secret always involves another person from whom the information is kept (Bedrov et al, 2021), it may always necessitate some consideration of extrinsic constraints. Overall, having a positive secret moves people further up the motivational continuum toward more beneficial forms of motivation, even when they do not always achieve pure intrinsic motivation.…”

Let it go: How exaggerating the reputational costs of revealing negative information encourages secrecy in relationships.

“…Psychologists have largely studied secrecy from an intrapersonal perspective, examining the emotional costs of holding secrets (e.g., Bedrov et al, 2021;Pennebaker, 1989;Slepian, 2022) as well as the individual determinants of people's decisions to reveal secrets to others (T. Afifi & Steuber, 2009). Our research suggests that an interpersonal perspective is critical for achieving a more complete understanding of decisions to reveal or conceal information, as well as understanding the relational consequences of secrecy and psychological barriers to greater transparency.…”

Regulating emotions about secrets.

“…Secrecy is a social act, requiring information to be kept from others (Bedrov et al, 2021; Bingley et al, 2022). Accordingly, social interaction is one cue that can both bring a secret to mind and necessitate secret concealment (Bianchi et al, 2024; Slepian, 2022).…”