Self-Concealment: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Health Implications

Abstract

This article introduces the construct of self-concealment, the active concealment from others of personal information that one perceives as negative or distressing. A Self-Concealment Scale (SCS) was developed and was included in a questionnaire battery completed by 306 subjects. The SCS had excellent psychometric properties. Self-concealment was conceptually and empirically distinguished from self-disclosure. Self-concealment significantly correlated with self-report measures of anxiety, depression, and bodily symptoms and accounted for a significant incremental per centage of the variance in physical and psychological symptoms even after controlling for occurrence of trauma, trauma distress, disclosure of the trauma, social support, social network, and self-disclosure. The implications of these findings are discussed and directions for further research are briefly outlined.Self-concealment is a familiar human experience. Most people have un comfortable feelings, thoughts, and information about themselves that they avoid telling others. These secrets can range from mildly embarrassing to highly distressing. Sometimes these secrets have been told to only one or two persons and sometimes to no one at all. Clinical practice and research, as well as casual observation, indicate that some individuals tend to self-conceal more than others do and that the most painful or traumatic experiences are often concealed; examples are sexual abuse as a child (Russell

Relations Among Self-concealment, Mindfulness, and Internalizing Problems

“…The total score is derived from the sum of responses to all 10 items, with greater values indicating greater self-concealment. The SCS is a reliable measure of self-concealment, with test-retest (over 4 weeks) and inter-item reliability estimates of .81 and .83, respectively (Larson & Chastain, 1990). In the present study, Cronbach's alphas were .88 for male participants and .88 for female participants.…”

“…Furthermore, preliminary findings suggest that self-concealment and mindfulness are related, but distinct behavioral patterns associated with a range of internalizing problems (Brown et al, 2007;Larson & Chastain, 1990;Masuda, Anderson, & Sheehan, 2009;Masuda et al, 2010;Wismeijer et al, 2009). For example, a negative association between self-concealment and mindfulness was found in Asian American and European American college students (Masuda et al, 2010) as well as in African American college students (Masuda et al, 2009).…”

“…The Self Concealment Scale (SCS; Larson & Chastain, 1990) is a selfreport inventory designed to measure a person's tendency to conceal personal information that is distressing or negatively-evaluated (e.g., "There are lots of things about me that I keep to myself"). The SCS contains 10 items and employs a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) for each item.…”

“…Self-concealment, although varying in definition across investigators (Kelly & Yip, 2006;Masuda, Anderson, et al, 2011), is generally viewed as a fairly stable behavioral tendency to keep distressing and potentially embarrassing personal information hidden from others (Cramer & Barry, 1999;Larson & Chastain, 1990). Conceptually, while considered an adaptive behavioral tendency in some sociocultural contexts (O'Neil, Helms, Gable, David, & Wrightsman, 1986;Wallace & Constantine, 2005), self-concealment may serve as a maladaptive control-and avoidance-focused emotion/behavior regulation strategy in other contexts (Masuda, Anderson, et al, 2011;Masuda, Boone, & Timko, 2011).…”

“…Conceptually, while considered an adaptive behavioral tendency in some sociocultural contexts (O'Neil, Helms, Gable, David, & Wrightsman, 1986;Wallace & Constantine, 2005), self-concealment may serve as a maladaptive control-and avoidance-focused emotion/behavior regulation strategy in other contexts (Masuda, Anderson, et al, 2011;Masuda, Boone, & Timko, 2011). Research has shown that self-concealment is positively associated with global psychological symptoms (Cramer, 1999), depression (DiBartolo, Li, & Frost, 2008), anxiety (Larson & Chastain, 1990;Potoczniak, Aldea, & DeBlaere, 2007), and various forms of somatic complaints (Larson & Chastain, 1990). Selfconcealment is also found to be associated with maladaptive regulation tendencies, such as experiential avoidance (Masuda, Anderson, et al, 2011) and scrutinizing one's negative moods without being able to label these and adequately act upon them (Wismeijer, van Assen, Sijtsma, & Vingerhoets, 2009).…”