To begin with, Dr. Slepian said when we keep a secret, we often mean to protect something. "Perhaps we believe that it protects our reputation, or our relationship with someone. And yet, our secrets tend to harm our well-being, and can harm our relationships too," the author of The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships, and Who We Are told Bored Panda.
"When we choose to be alone with something, especially something important, we tend not to develop the healthiest way of thinking about it. It often takes another person to get the help that we need. Even a short conversation with a trusted person can offer so much. Emotional support and fresh perspectives can easily be offered by your confidant, but are hard to find on your own. This is why we often want to bring others in. We know that another person can prove helpful, and that having a conversation about the secret would be a healthy thing to do. To have a secret from everyone is to be alone with that thing, and we don't like to be alone. Your desire for help and social connection is in battle with your fear of how others will respond. When we let fear win, we hold the secret tight."
With Edy Moulton-Tetlock, a doctoral student in management studying organizational behavior, Dr. Slepian asked more than 800 online participants to describe their personal secrets, using his list of 38 common categories of secrets as their guide.
The participants described more than 10,000 secrets, including both those they had shared with someone ("confided secrets") and the ones they had kept all to themselves ("total secrets").
The data revealed that confiding a secret predicted improved well-being. That's because the participant received social support and because the act of revealing the secret seemed to minimize the amount of time the person spent thinking about it.
Dr. Slepian's research suggests that someone who is more secretive tends to be less extraverted and less emotionally stable, but more conscientious.
However, we also need to be aware of what it means to be "unloaded" on.
"When another person confides in us, this can be a boon but also a burden. When someone trusts us to the point of revealing a secret, we understand this is an act of intimacy, and often feel closer to the person as a result."
And yet, Dr. Slepian explained that if the secret is something we find troubling or surprising, we might find our thoughts returning to it again and again.
"The secret can weigh on our mind. And if the secret implicates someone you know, then you'll have to keep the secret from them, which will bring its own burden," he added.
While Dr. Slepian thinks it's possible for people to live like an open book, sharing everything with the world, he wouldn't advise it.
"There is a class of secrets that most everyone agrees is okay to keep. People often call these 'white lies,'" he clarified. "If you are just arriving at the party, and your friend asks you how their outfit looks, but it is too late to change, then most people agree that saying something positive is the kinder response ('You look great!'). If the truth needlessly hurts someone's feelings, holding back is often the more compassionate choice."
