Speaker 1: What is helpful about all these forms of revelation is,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes the hardest part is just admitting to
Speaker 1: yourself this thing happened. But what's even more helpful than just,
Speaker 1: you know, releasing your secret. And so the efor is
Speaker 1: observing how another person responds to it, and that's why
Speaker 1: conversation with another person is often much better.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today's episode is
Speaker 2: sponsored by Unlikely Collaborators. Their mission is to entangle the
Speaker 2: stories that hold us back as individuals, communities, nations, and
Speaker 2: humanity at large, using the Perception Box lens. They do
Speaker 2: this through storytelling, experiences, impact investments, and scientific research. Unlikely
Speaker 2: Collaborators the only way forward is inward. Later on in
Speaker 2: this episode, I'll talk a lot more about the Perception
Speaker 2: box and how it relates to this episode, But right now,
Speaker 2: let me tell you about today's guest. Today, we welcome
Speaker 2: Michael Slepian too the show. Michael is the Sanford CE
Speaker 2: Bernstein and co Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at
Speaker 2: Columbia University. A recipient of the Rising Star Award from
Speaker 2: the Association for Psychological Science, He's the leading expert on
Speaker 2: the psychology of secrets. He's authored more than fifty articles
Speaker 2: on secrecy, truth and deception. Michael's research has been covered
Speaker 2: by The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, BBC, The
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, and more. He's the author of the
Speaker 2: Secret Life of Secrets. In this episode, I talked to
Speaker 2: Michael Slepian about the psychology of secrets. Everyone has secrets
Speaker 2: that they keep from others, but how does this affect
Speaker 2: our relationships and well being? According to Michael, maintaining privacy
Speaker 2: is not the most burdensome aspect. Carrying a secret all
Speaker 2: by ourselves is what weighs us down. Michael and I
Speaker 2: explore the different categories of secrets, and we talk about
Speaker 2: when to reveal the deepest parts of ourselves and who
Speaker 2: to reveal them to. We also touch on the topics
Speaker 2: of personality, morality, trauma, developmental psychology, and communication. This was
Speaker 2: a really fun and enlightening chat on a topic that
Speaker 2: is not really talked about that much, and there's really
Speaker 2: not a lot in the psychological literature about this. So
Speaker 2: I really appreciate Michael for studying this topic and for
Speaker 2: teaching us all about the hidden world of secrets. So,
Speaker 2: without further ado I'll bring you. Michael Slepian, Well, I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed your new book, The Secret of Secrets, How
Speaker 2: our inner world shape well being, relationships, and who we are.
Speaker 2: I learned a lot about secrets in this book, like
Speaker 2: a lot of nuances that didn't even know existed. Would
Speaker 2: you start off by telling Orion's a little bit about
Speaker 2: your family's bombshell secret? And is that what got you
Speaker 2: started and really wanting to study this topic.
Speaker 1: So in twenty thirteen, I had been studying secrecy for
Speaker 1: about a year, so it was brand new research at
Speaker 1: the time, and I was in fact on interview at
Speaker 1: Columbia for the position that I have now.
Speaker 3: And on that day, I'm.
Speaker 1: Spending the whole day showcasing this new research on secrecy.
Speaker 1: And at the end of that night, when I'm actually
Speaker 1: still out with folks, I get a call from my
Speaker 1: dad a miscall, and I get a second misscall, and
Speaker 1: I'm starting to get worried something really tragic has happened.
Speaker 1: And what turns out to be the case is that
Speaker 1: my dad on the phone says, I have to tell
Speaker 1: you something. I'm not biologically able to have children. He
Speaker 1: was telling me that he wasn't my biological father and
Speaker 1: that this was a secret that they had planned to
Speaker 1: keep from me forever. And of course that's that's really
Speaker 1: surprising information. But I really quickly accepted that new reality,
Speaker 1: that idea that well, you know, whether or not I'm
Speaker 1: genetically related to my dad, it doesn't make a difference.
Speaker 1: He's still my dad, my really good friends, I'm not
Speaker 1: genetically related to that's fine, and so I kind of
Speaker 1: accepted it really quickly. The reality as shocking as it was,
Speaker 1: but it was the secret keeping that was even more surprising.
Speaker 1: That why was the secret kept from me? And you
Speaker 1: know who else knew? It turned out my entire family,
Speaker 1: apart from me and my younger brother, had known the
Speaker 1: whole time.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's that's yeah. I imagine that really affected you. Did
Speaker 2: you ever meet your who your genetic father is?
Speaker 1: No? I, yeah, I you know, that's something that I'm
Speaker 1: not interested in, at least not at this moment.
Speaker 2: But yeah, fair enough, fair enough. So you started studying
Speaker 2: this topic, well you had been studying at that time,
Speaker 2: and then you've been studying it for the past ten years.
Speaker 2: Would you say, is like one of the most surprising
Speaker 2: findings you found about secrets that you really wouldn't been
Speaker 2: able to predict going into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's pretty much where this research started to
Speaker 1: My very early studies in secrecy were suggesting that part
Speaker 1: of the burden of a secret is just simply thinking
Speaker 1: about a secret.
Speaker 3: And so in my.
Speaker 1: Earliest studies, I had people think about a secret and
Speaker 1: looked at whether they felt a sense of burden in
Speaker 1: that moment. And when I started presenting that research to people,
Speaker 1: some people we really, wait, a minute, how is this secrecy.
Speaker 1: You're just having someone think about a secret. That's not secrecy.
Speaker 1: You have to have someone to hide a secret. To
Speaker 1: study secrecy, you have to have someone in a conversation
Speaker 1: hiding from the other person in the room.
Speaker 3: And what turns out to be what was.
Speaker 1: Surprising at first is that actually is a very marginal
Speaker 1: form of secrecy is and it's pretty rare that we
Speaker 1: have to conceal our secrets, and when we do, we're
Speaker 1: really prepared for those moments for the most part, and
Speaker 1: concealing secrets turns out to be the easy part. The
Speaker 1: surprising thing is that it's all the other moments when
Speaker 1: our secrets hurt us the most. That was certainly surprising.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, and so it's something I've been exploring
Speaker 1: for years now.
Speaker 2: I really want to further discuss throughout this today. You
Speaker 2: know what the deep practical implications of that are. I
Speaker 2: should have started off with the first question is what
Speaker 2: is a secret? You know? Because you look at it
Speaker 2: as something that you look as an intention? Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So I define secrecy as the intention to withhold information
Speaker 1: back from more and more people. And so there's plenty
Speaker 1: of things that other people don't know about us, and
Speaker 1: not all of those things are secrets. If the reason
Speaker 1: other people don't know about this thing about you because
Speaker 1: you're intentionally withholding it, then that would be a secret,
Speaker 1: and you could still talk about it with other people.
Speaker 1: But as long as you're intending to keep it from
Speaker 1: one person, I would call it a secret.
Speaker 2: What is it about the way humans are wired? Where
Speaker 2: I guess my question is how do the secrets evolve?
Speaker 2: You know? Is it like something that plays off some
Speaker 2: genetically evolved personality traits?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Where is it? Where did it come from? When once
Speaker 2: we got the language, you know, who was the first
Speaker 2: one who told the secret? And then other humans were like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's fun.
Speaker 1: So it turns out you can actually see some evidence
Speaker 1: that chimpanzees can conceal objects and actions from other chimpanzees,
Speaker 1: and so we're not the only ones who can keep secrets.
Speaker 3: You're right.
Speaker 1: Language changes things, of course, too, But essentially, our ability
Speaker 1: to keep secrets is an outcome of being able to
Speaker 1: really confidently think about other minds as well as our own,
Speaker 1: and to recognize that something in our head is not necessarily.
Speaker 3: In others' heads.
Speaker 1: And once you have a good understanding of that, you
Speaker 1: can start competently keeping secrets. And so children will develop
Speaker 1: this skill throughout early childhood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very pH right. Being able to have some
Speaker 2: perspective taking of some sort seems to be required to
Speaker 2: be able to tell a secret, because you can't guess,
Speaker 2: you can't tell secret to yourself, Like you can't keep
Speaker 2: a secret, I should say, you can't keep a secret
Speaker 2: from yourself, can you. That's actually really an interesting question.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Someone posts that question once to me not long ago,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, let me think about that,
Speaker 1: and then they came up with a bunch of great examples.
Speaker 1: People who are having a child who don't want to
Speaker 1: know the sex of that child can keep that secret
Speaker 1: from themselves by not getting the information. Things like that,
Speaker 1: things where you could you could ass the information if
Speaker 1: you chose to you, but you've chosen not to.
Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah, that's why I wanted to think about
Speaker 2: it a little bit more. I was like, wait a minute, Actually,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't be so quick to say it's not possible.
Speaker 2: I guess it's different than I was trying to think
Speaker 2: in my head. Is that different than deceiving yourself? I
Speaker 2: guess it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think where a deception is distinct from secrecy is
Speaker 1: there's plenty of ways to keep a secret.
Speaker 3: That don't involve lying.
Speaker 1: Line of course, is a way to keep a secret
Speaker 1: to you, I would suggest a risky way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you distinguish between secrecy and privacy. What is
Speaker 2: the difference between the two.
Speaker 1: So, privacy is a general reflection of how much comfort
Speaker 1: you need or how close someone needs to be to
Speaker 1: you for you to reveal something sensitive. So someone who's
Speaker 1: really private needs someone to be really close to talk
Speaker 1: about more intimate details. But that's still different from specifically
Speaker 1: intending to withhold information from other people. So some examples
Speaker 1: of things that might be private that might seem like
Speaker 1: secret issues around money tend not to talk about out
Speaker 1: a concern of politeness. That's why you don't talk about it.
Speaker 1: That might be privacy rather than the specific intent to
Speaker 1: withhold something some financial decision back from other people. Sex
Speaker 1: is another example of something we tend not to talk
Speaker 1: about with others that must work close with them. But
Speaker 1: again that's different from specifically wanting some specific sexual experience
Speaker 1: to not be known by others.
Speaker 2: How many secret does the average person hold at one time?
Speaker 2: And how would one even figure something like that out?
Speaker 1: So I can give you a partial answer to that question,
Speaker 1: where one way to get there is to first understand
Speaker 1: what are the common secrets people keep? And we asked
Speaker 1: a couple thousand people what's the secret you're currently keeping
Speaker 1: right now? And from those responses created this list of
Speaker 1: thirty eight categories of common secrets. And this list actually
Speaker 1: is really comprehensive because if someone just says what is
Speaker 1: the secret they're keeping, ninety two percent of the time
Speaker 1: it fits one of the items on the list. Ninety
Speaker 1: seven percent of people have at least one of the
Speaker 1: secrets from that list, and the average person at any
Speaker 1: given moment is keeping thirteen secrets from that list.
Speaker 3: Of thirty eight.
Speaker 1: Oh humans, you know, in some ways that number is
Speaker 1: an underestimate because that's looking at how many different kinds
Speaker 1: of secrets people have, and so they have thirteen different
Speaker 1: kinds of secrets. On average, you might have multiple secrets
Speaker 1: of the same category.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Okay, so I read that research from
Speaker 2: because I just said the average numbers thirty. But that's
Speaker 2: thirteen kinds. That's increb Wow. Can you give me some
Speaker 2: of your favorite categories? I mean, like I want, I
Speaker 2: would love for you to run down the list of
Speaker 2: all of them, but we don't have time for that,
Speaker 2: I guess. But can you what are some of the
Speaker 2: most salacious for our listeners?
Speaker 3: Most salacious?
Speaker 1: Well, this isn't very silicious, but I find it quite
Speaker 1: interesting and it's actually a really common secret. The secret
Speaker 1: that people have that they least commonly talk about is
Speaker 1: what we call extra relational thoughts. You're in a relationship
Speaker 1: with one person and having some kind of romantic thoughts
Speaker 1: about another person, and this is a common experience. This
Speaker 1: is something we commonly don't talk about. Other common secrets
Speaker 1: include lies we've told, secret ambitions. Family secrets is a
Speaker 1: big one. Violations of others trust of course in finelity
Speaker 1: and cheating and so on.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so I'm a personality researcher psychologist, so this
Speaker 2: is I have lots of like questions relating to individual differences.
Speaker 2: What have you found in your research is the intersection
Speaker 2: of personality traits and secret keeping? Have you looked at
Speaker 2: the Big Five? That sort of thing?
Speaker 1: And so the Big Five shows some interesting and reliable
Speaker 1: relationships with how many secrets people keep, and so some
Speaker 1: are very intuitive. For example, introverted people have more secrets.
Speaker 1: Actroverted people have fewer secrets. Another one that's more intuitive
Speaker 1: is that the emotionally stable people have fewer secrets. More
Speaker 1: neurotic people have more secrets. The one I find very
Speaker 1: interesting is conscientiousness. The conscientious have more secrets. That sort
Speaker 1: of carefulness and diligence even goes as far as holding information.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. Yeah, oh, what did you go through
Speaker 2: all the five? What about I guess openness? Did you say?
Speaker 1: Openness, openness, and agreeableness don't associate with the number.
Speaker 3: Of secrets people keep.
Speaker 1: Really, so a complication is that they these traits are
Speaker 1: the reliability reliably related to having experiences that people commonly
Speaker 1: keep secret. So, for example, open people are more likely
Speaker 1: to have these experiences that kind of push the bound trees,
Speaker 1: but they're not more likely to keep them secret. And
Speaker 1: then agreeable people less agreeable people are also more likely
Speaker 1: to find themselves in these sort of complicated situations, but
Speaker 1: it's not related to keeping them more secret. For example,
Speaker 1: extroversion is related to getting these situations more, but keeping
Speaker 1: fewer of them secret.
Speaker 2: Can you see that one more time?
Speaker 1: Extroverted people do find themselves more in these situations that
Speaker 1: people commonly keep secret, but they keep fewer of them secret.
Speaker 2: They keep fear of them secret. Wow, that is so cool.
Speaker 2: How does secret relate to gossip the gossip drive? I
Speaker 2: read some really interesting papers in the evolution of gossip
Speaker 2: and the functions that it serves. Do they both serve
Speaker 2: similar functions.
Speaker 1: So they do map on to some of the motivations
Speaker 1: we see in terms of keeping secrets and sharing secrets.
Speaker 1: And so one reason to gossip is just that it's interesting,
Speaker 1: a way to learn things, and it's a way to
Speaker 1: bond over sort of juicy information. Another reason of gossip
Speaker 1: is you want to harm the reputation of someone who's
Speaker 1: a bad actor. And so this comes to be careful
Speaker 1: who you should really know who you reveal your secrets to.
Speaker 1: You If you reveal a secret to someone who's totally
Speaker 1: scandalized by what you're telling them, who finds what you're
Speaker 1: telling them to be morally objectionable, they're more likely to
Speaker 1: tell a third party that secret as a form of punishment.
Speaker 1: And so one reason to gossip that's sort of related
Speaker 1: to what we're talking about is you want to sort
Speaker 1: of punish in moral behavior of others.
Speaker 2: This is not this is not necessarily positive psychology, is it.
Speaker 1: But also I don't want to sell that our bess edge.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, confiding leads to good outcomes for
Speaker 1: you and the person you're confiding to, and that often
Speaker 1: strengthens the relationships. So there's a lot of good. It's
Speaker 1: mostly good that comes from your secrets. You just want
Speaker 1: to choose your person carefully.
Speaker 2: So that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and that
Speaker 2: so that is that can be placed. Who saved it?
Speaker 2: Now that can be they can be within the positive
Speaker 2: psychology high quality relationships framework. High quality h but that's
Speaker 2: also big in the business world. Right. Jane Dudden's work
Speaker 2: on high quality relationships, right, and trust is such a
Speaker 2: big one for high quality relationships. So yeah, maybe, like yes, Telly,
Speaker 2: secrets can really increase your chance of trust. And also
Speaker 2: Abraham Maslow, who I talk a lot about in his writings,
Speaker 2: he had written about self actualizing self actualized lovers tell
Speaker 2: lots of secrets to each other, that it really He
Speaker 2: mentioned that in one of his books in like the
Speaker 2: Sixties Always Stuck with Me, Yeah, with something sexy about
Speaker 2: about two lovers telling a secret to each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think when you reveal a secret to
Speaker 1: someone who's in a very long committed relationship, I think
Speaker 1: some people expect that that will then be passed on
Speaker 1: to the partner unless you specifically say otherwise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Today's podcast is sponsored by Unlikely Collaborators. Their
Speaker 2: mission is to entangle the stories that hold us back
Speaker 2: as individuals, communities, nations, and humanity at large using the
Speaker 2: perception box lens. They do this through storytelling, experiences, impact investments,
Speaker 2: and scientific research. Today's conversation with Michael really illustrates the
Speaker 2: importance of expanding the walls of our perception box. The
Speaker 2: perception box is the invisible mental box that we all
Speaker 2: live inside, and it can seriously hinder our ability to
Speaker 2: understand one another and to understand ourselves. In this episode,
Speaker 2: Michael goes deep into the psychology of secrets and shows
Speaker 2: the impact holding various forms of secrets can have on
Speaker 2: our lives and the lives of others. From a perception
Speaker 2: box perspective, the shame that can come from holding a
Speaker 2: secret can cause the biggest contraction of our perception box.
Speaker 2: If you're holding a secret, you are essentially telling yourself
Speaker 2: the story that you believe others are going to judge
Speaker 2: you for the things you intentionally are withholding from people.
Speaker 2: Maybe you feel like a bad person because of the secret. However,
Speaker 2: virtually every time I told would a loved one a
Speaker 2: secret that I thought I would have to feel shame over,
Speaker 2: I actually received sympathy and even often a me too.
Speaker 2: These moments are so connecting and authentic, and my perception
Speaker 2: box usually feels more expanded than ever. To find out
Speaker 2: more about unlikely collaborators and the perception box, go to
Speaker 2: Unlikely Collaborators dot com. Let's unpack a little more about
Speaker 2: where it develops in childhood, especially in you know, adolescents
Speaker 2: teenage years. Maybe there's a peak, is there, like a
Speaker 2: do you have a chart of when people tell more
Speaker 2: secrets than not that throughout the lifespan, can you kind
Speaker 2: of and I'm asking a lot of questions at once,
Speaker 2: just unpack it all.
Speaker 1: So certainly, by age three, children will try to keep secrets,
Speaker 1: not very effectively. They'll do things like saying they didn't
Speaker 1: eat any cookies except having cookie crumbs on their lips
Speaker 1: and things like that. But they get a little bit older,
Speaker 1: they start understanding, they have a much better understanding of
Speaker 1: the things that are in their head that are not
Speaker 1: necessarily in other sense, and a better understanding of how
Speaker 1: to keep those things secret. So, for example, in their
Speaker 1: earlier years they might blame a ghost for breaking a vase,
Speaker 1: whereas in their later years they might blame the cat.
Speaker 1: So they start getting better at keeping secrets. And for
Speaker 1: the most part, children keeping secrets is not really a problem.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe they're getting into less trouble, so there's
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about less serious issues in the beginning.
Speaker 1: Where secrecy starts becoming harmful is adolescence. And there's the
Speaker 1: sort of healthy form of privacy that teens will develop
Speaker 1: and seek, and parents should allow their teenagers to develop
Speaker 1: that sphere of privacy, that's not a problem.
Speaker 3: But when teenagers.
Speaker 1: Start keeping things like worries and struggles and shames secret,
Speaker 1: that's when the problems can begin. When they're sort of
Speaker 1: too worried about saying the wrong thing instead of getting
Speaker 1: the head that they need. That's when we see secrecy
Speaker 1: hurting teenagers, and it's the same way secrets hurt adults.
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense. Well, what can we
Speaker 2: do to combat that in adolescents? How can we increate
Speaker 2: put that somewhere in our education.
Speaker 1: You want to somehow send the message that it's okay
Speaker 1: to hold things private. But if there's if somebody is
Speaker 1: being harmed, whether it's another person or you, that's not
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you should keep entirely to yourself.
Speaker 1: That's something you really should talk to someone else about.
Speaker 1: So sort of helping them understand what's a healthy way
Speaker 1: of having privacy and when is it time to come
Speaker 1: to someone with a secret.
Speaker 2: Well, we have a lot of time here today, so
Speaker 2: I wanted to read the whole list of all the
Speaker 2: secret categories. The categories are not secret, but these are
Speaker 2: categories of secretness. You know what I'm saying. People know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, extra relational thoughts is the highest prevalence,
Speaker 2: and this is an order of the percentage of people
Speaker 2: with this experience from most populous to these papas extra
Speaker 2: relational thoughts, sexual behavior, emotional infidelity, personal story. Now, okay,
Speaker 2: what's personal story?
Speaker 1: That's kind of like a catch all category. Do you
Speaker 1: have some specific story that you keep secret that didn't
Speaker 1: fit one of the other categories?
Speaker 2: Gotcha, thank you? Counteronormative okay, kit.
Speaker 1: What's that something that you feel is charunter to norms,
Speaker 1: you know, whether that's picking your nose or something more
Speaker 1: significant that you find to be unusual. You know, for
Speaker 1: some people that's like it's an adult who really likes
Speaker 1: watching kids shows or whatever.
Speaker 2: Gotcha? Theft? Wow, that theft is eye up there, Oh, theft.
Speaker 1: So it's important this is theft in the most broadly
Speaker 1: construed way. So for example, one time, when I was
Speaker 1: staying over at a friends and I realized I needed
Speaker 1: socks and I didn't have any socks. I took my
Speaker 1: friend's socks, and you know, I didn't ask first, and.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I gave them back either.
Speaker 1: Any kind of taking without asking, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be like serious theft.
Speaker 2: Than sexual infidelity. Ambition, that's a very interesting one. People
Speaker 2: hiding their ambition. My research has found that those who
Speaker 2: score high in what's called vulnerable narcissism have very high
Speaker 2: they have very high ambitions, but they they're very they're
Speaker 2: more likely to hide it from others and feel shame
Speaker 2: over having high ambition. So I imagine that you'd probably find
Speaker 2: a correlation between the emotion of shame and that one.
Speaker 1: They think also embarrassment is part of that story where
Speaker 1: people have some kind of ambition and they know there's
Speaker 1: a chance they don't achieve it, and rather than people
Speaker 1: find out that they didn't achieve the goal, you know
Speaker 1: better to just not tell anyone. And then especially for
Speaker 1: the really ambitious things, it's like, you know, they might
Speaker 1: not even get close, and so they rather keep it secret.
Speaker 2: Yeah, self harm, work, school, cheating, romantic desire, why violate trust?
Speaker 2: Family secret? No sex? Now, what's no people are secret about?
Speaker 2: No sex? Was that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think this is also a very interesting one because
Speaker 1: of course there's you know, sexual experiences that you'll see
Speaker 1: in that list that people keep secret.
Speaker 3: But another secret that they need.
Speaker 1: Is when they are currently not having.
Speaker 2: Sex dry spell dry spell time.
Speaker 1: I think there's someone else's research that I can't remember
Speaker 1: their name right now, But essentially, people think other people
Speaker 1: are having more sex than than they are, and so
Speaker 1: if you feel like you're not having it, that might
Speaker 1: be something you don't want to admit to you.
Speaker 2: So interesting, just like if everyone was just honest with
Speaker 2: each other, wouldn't we realize how much more similar we
Speaker 2: are to each other than different. I think the people
Speaker 2: who are out there having like millions of sexual partners,
Speaker 2: I think those are the outliers. I think that's what
Speaker 2: the research shows. But anyway, we can move on from
Speaker 2: other women men. Okay, so yeah, so that monestary in fidelity,
Speaker 2: someone's cheating That someone's cheating their partner to be with you. Finances,
Speaker 2: Oh I'm so rich? Is that?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What how much I make?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Anything? Anything? Really? In the finances? Other harm hobby people
Speaker 2: are secretive about a hobby. They have habit addiction. Those
Speaker 2: two are very very neck and neck. They can maybe
Speaker 2: go together. We can. Let's just think of our addictions
Speaker 2: as hobbies. That's a better framing legal things. I guess abortion, well, now,
Speaker 2: even with the ruling, you can't even more people probably
Speaker 2: be secretive about that preference preference for.
Speaker 1: What anything it could be. You know, one person confided
Speaker 1: in me, I don't like Radiohead. Just either liking something
Speaker 1: that people that you don't want people to know you like,
Speaker 1: or disliking something that you don't want people to know
Speaker 1: you dislike.
Speaker 2: Gotcha. Romantic discontent, hidden relationship, sexual orientation, physical discontent, mental health,
Speaker 2: social discontent, trauma, employment belief ideology, marriage proposal secret about
Speaker 2: a marriage you a two secret from like the parents,
Speaker 2: or something that you made a marriage proposal to someone.
Speaker 1: A proposal that has yet to happen. Is the one
Speaker 1: here where you're.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're keeping that you already did the proposal,
Speaker 2: and you're keeping that secret. Pregnant, poor work performance, surprise,
Speaker 2: being secret about being surprised about something.
Speaker 1: Isn't it that you have a surprise plan for someone?
Speaker 2: So, oh, I'm not very good at like, guess what
Speaker 2: you mean? Drug use? Uh? And then the least frequent
Speaker 2: is work discontent. Yeah, why would people be secret about work?
Speaker 2: Just good? I think people love to bond with each
Speaker 2: other over how discontent they are about work exactly. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 2: so you found ninety seven percent of your participants say
Speaker 2: they currently have at least in one of those secrets
Speaker 2: from this list I just read. So this covers discovers
Speaker 2: a word swath of humanity there. Yeah, that's really cool. Okay,
Speaker 2: So let's let's ping pong back to the development in
Speaker 2: childhood aspect. You know how parents can foster a healthy
Speaker 2: relationship with their children that enables both privacy and a
Speaker 2: healthy level of trust and communication to avoid heightened secret keeping.
Speaker 1: Essentially, what you want to do when you're a child
Speaker 1: reveals something that upsets you or that you're disappointed by,
Speaker 1: or that even makes you angry, and as hard as
Speaker 1: it can be in the moment, you do not want
Speaker 1: to respond with an angry outburst or severe disapproval because
Speaker 1: if you respond in a really negative way, the team
Speaker 1: will come away thinking, well, that didn't go well. I
Speaker 1: don't want to do that again. And so what you
Speaker 1: want to do is respond with compassion and acceptance. You
Speaker 1: can be disappointed, but you can still be there for
Speaker 1: them and say I can help you with whatever it
Speaker 1: is thing. The compassionate response will keep the door open
Speaker 1: for future confessions, whereas an angry outburst is going to
Speaker 1: potentially close that door. You want them to feel okay
Speaker 1: coming to you with things that are hard to talk about,
Speaker 1: and they're going to make themselves vulnerable to reveal these things.
Speaker 3: And that's really not the.
Speaker 1: Moment when you want to respond extremely negatively. The other
Speaker 1: thing to do is you also want to model effective
Speaker 1: coping skills yourself. And so if you're if your way
Speaker 1: of dealing with problems is really counter is really visibly counterproductive,
Speaker 1: you know, you have these you know, outbursts of anger
Speaker 1: or you know, don't handle stress, well, you know, kids
Speaker 1: can pick up on that, and if they see if
Speaker 1: you're modeling non effective coping skills, they might develop those two.
Speaker 1: And so there's some research that shows that when parents
Speaker 1: really are you know, over controlling and don't have good
Speaker 1: coping skills themselves, their children are more likely to become ruminators,
Speaker 1: you know people, rather than coming to someone with help,
Speaker 1: just thinking about it all on your own.
Speaker 2: This is great, great burning advice in general. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: really don't hear that much this kind of advice and
Speaker 2: some parent books, you know, the well secrets. It's not
Speaker 2: a topic that is that prevalent in the psychological literature. Right,
Speaker 2: I mean, you're the guy, right, You're you're the leader
Speaker 2: in this, in this the study of this this topic.
Speaker 2: So well, who else, who else in the field is
Speaker 2: studying this topic, folks.
Speaker 1: You know in they're not really well, there's a really
Speaker 1: fascinating research from like a long time ago.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Dan Wigner did some research in this space. James Pennebaker
Speaker 1: does research that's related. He finds that when you sort
Speaker 1: of engage and express their writing, you know, journaling can
Speaker 1: can not necessarily does, can can really help. It's important
Speaker 1: to distinguish that from actual disclosure actually talking to someone.
Speaker 1: The more that journaling looks like actually talking to someone,
Speaker 1: the more it helps. When you're getting someone when you're
Speaker 1: trying to challenge your own counterproductive lines of thought, a
Speaker 1: lot easier for someone else to do. But if you're
Speaker 1: trying to do it alone, that's the goal, trying to
Speaker 1: find a new perspective that helps you moving forward.
Speaker 2: Is it true that some secrets are more frequently confided
Speaker 2: than others.
Speaker 1: Yes, In fact, the way the order of that list
Speaker 1: you were reading was ordered in that way with so
Speaker 1: for example, work discontent is the secret we can finde
Speaker 1: in most in other people, as in it's common to
Speaker 1: be discontent at work. It's common to have that secret,
Speaker 1: but people also typically talk about that with other people.
Speaker 2: Oh, I gotcha, that was literally how I read that? Here? Everyone,
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Speaker 2: of morality and secret keeping? What do you do? Do
Speaker 2: you like have a hard stance on that or do
Speaker 2: you try stagnostic?
Speaker 3: Okay, I was about to answer in a very different way.
Speaker 1: The morality, the morality of secret keeping is the bigger question.
Speaker 1: Let's let's see if we end up there. The way
Speaker 1: morality seems to be most important to secrecy is the
Speaker 1: morality of the behavior that you're keeping secret. And the
Speaker 1: more that someone believes their own secret to be immoral,
Speaker 1: the more they feel ashamed with that secret, and the
Speaker 1: more they ruminate on that secret, and the less capable
Speaker 1: they feel with coping with the secret more that's the
Speaker 1: hurts their well being. So it's a really powerful dimension
Speaker 1: of secrets in terms of coping less well with them
Speaker 1: and being more hurt by them. And then also with
Speaker 1: respect and morality. When you're deciding who to talk to,
Speaker 1: which almost always you should talk to someone not necessarily
Speaker 1: the person you're keeping the secret from. You want to
Speaker 1: choose someone who will see the morality of that issue
Speaker 1: in a similar way as you. If they're going to
Speaker 1: find what you tell them to be extremely morally wrong,
Speaker 1: that's not going to be so helpful to you in
Speaker 1: most cases, So you kind of want to find a
Speaker 1: like minded individual or just someone removed from it all.
Speaker 2: Okay, And then what about the other direction in which
Speaker 2: we could take this.
Speaker 1: Question, the morality of secret keeping. There are some there's
Speaker 1: a class of secrets that most people agree.
Speaker 3: Is not im moral to keep.
Speaker 1: It's not wrong to keep these secrets, and people will
Speaker 1: call those white lives where you know you're just saying
Speaker 1: something to be nice. If the reason you're holding back
Speaker 1: a truth is just to be nice and polite and
Speaker 1: kind and not needlessly hurt someone's feelings, people will say
Speaker 1: that's generally the nicer thing to do, rather than being
Speaker 1: brutally honest and hurting their feelings for no good reason.
Speaker 1: If you're keeping a secret from a partner, the moral
Speaker 1: you think this thing is, the more the other person
Speaker 1: would really find it to be a betrayal to have
Speaker 1: kept this thing a secret. And so you know, when
Speaker 1: you're keeping something secret that could damage the relationship if
Speaker 1: you were to reveal the secret. That's when we get
Speaker 1: into some really hard questions as to what you should do,
Speaker 1: even if you think it's.
Speaker 3: Moral or immoral.
Speaker 1: Most people, you know, there's this expectation of honesty and openness,
Speaker 1: and if the reason you're holding the secret back is
Speaker 1: you think it's good for the relationship, it's tough there.
Speaker 1: So the classic example is you've achieved on your partner,
Speaker 1: should you confess to it? And you know, one thing
Speaker 1: that I think is an important issue when it comes
Speaker 1: to that question is was this just a one time thing.
Speaker 1: Dan Savage will say that if it was a one
Speaker 1: time thing, if the only reason you want to reveal
Speaker 1: this is to get this thing off your chest, well
Speaker 1: you could be taking this heavy burden off you and
Speaker 1: just placing it right onto your partner. And so if
Speaker 1: this would just really upset them and it was a
Speaker 1: one time thing, some folks will say, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's better for the relationship to withhold that. If it's
Speaker 1: not a one time thing, I think most folks would
Speaker 1: say that's a problem. If it was a repeated defense,
Speaker 1: I think most people would say, you do have to
Speaker 1: reveal that because there was a problem there. That's not
Speaker 1: going to solve itself. The final thing to think about
Speaker 1: there is would your partner want to know? And I
Speaker 1: asked a group of three hundred people and committed relationships
Speaker 1: this question. Imagine that your partner is traveling for work
Speaker 1: and a total lapse of judgment, they get drunk, they
Speaker 1: cheat on you, this has never happened before, this will
Speaker 1: never happen again.
Speaker 3: Would you want to know?
Speaker 1: And seventy seven percent of the participants said yes, And
Speaker 1: that's surprise. I thought that number would be lower. But
Speaker 1: the important point there is that some people would want
Speaker 1: to know and some people wouldn't. And so if this
Speaker 1: was a one time thing and you're trying to decide
Speaker 1: what to do about it, I always suggest talk to
Speaker 1: a third party. This decision is so big, it's so consequential,
Speaker 1: that there's there's no reason you have to decide it alone.
Speaker 2: That's a really good point. A lot of moral quandaries
Speaker 2: in these kinds of situations. You know what they're not
Speaker 2: telling you, A secret does more harm than good, and
Speaker 2: you can, you know, utilitary instead of a field day
Speaker 2: thinking about that kind of stuff. So let's let's see
Speaker 2: you have like a really juicy concrete example. Can you
Speaker 2: tell me a little about Dale Coventry and Jamie Kuntz's secret,
Speaker 2: the two public defenders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so these are two Illinois public defenders. One of
Speaker 1: them has since passed away recently. But at the time
Speaker 1: they had they had the secret, and they had this
Speaker 1: secret for twenty six years. And the secret that they
Speaker 1: were keeping is that they knew their client who they
Speaker 1: were representing, had committed a crime murder, and they knew
Speaker 1: that someone else was sitting in jail for this murder,
Speaker 1: someone was wrongfully accused and imprisoned and was innocent, and
Speaker 1: so they knew that this person was sitting in prison innocent,
Speaker 1: and this was a secret they kept for twenty six years.
Speaker 1: And the reason why they weren't able in their perspective
Speaker 1: to reveal the secret is they learned it with attorney
Speaker 1: client privilege, and their client refused, did not give them
Speaker 1: permission to reveal this information, not until after his death,
Speaker 1: and he did pass away, and they did finally come
Speaker 1: forward with the secret, and this person was eventually released
Speaker 1: from prison, but he was there for twenty six years.
Speaker 1: They described what it was like to have this secret,
Speaker 1: you know. They didn't say it was hard to hold back.
Speaker 1: They didn't say it was hard to dodge questions. What
Speaker 1: made the secret difficult was just that they had to
Speaker 1: live with it. They just had to think about this
Speaker 1: thing every every day, or every time someone wrongfully accused
Speaker 1: was let free. Of course, they were to be reminded
Speaker 1: of this huge secret that they were sitting on for decades.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just Oh I read that story. I was
Speaker 2: just like, man, I don't want any secrets in my life.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd rather wear my I do wear my
Speaker 2: heart my sleeve. And sometimes it's awkwardly, you know, like,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I guess it's not the secret, but
Speaker 2: as it's like having no filter, I don't know what
Speaker 2: is that and what is that about me? I no filtered? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just don't like keeping things inside that are that
Speaker 2: could be wise in some way. But anyway, Well, what
Speaker 2: are some lessons we've learned from the trauma literature that's
Speaker 2: really interesting me as well? You know, like I really
Speaker 2: I love Jeames Pennabaker's work and I love that you
Speaker 2: cited it in your book. Yeah, can you kind of
Speaker 2: talk about that connection a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the relationship here is the ways in which
Speaker 1: we cope with trauma can be similar or can be
Speaker 1: helpful to understand the effective ways to do so when
Speaker 1: it comes to keeping with your own secret, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be about trauma, but it can give you
Speaker 1: clues about what's the most healthy response here. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, James Pennamaker's early work showed that when people
Speaker 1: had traumatic experiences that they tended to not talk about
Speaker 1: with their friends, their health was worse for it. And
Speaker 1: so that earlier study was looking at people who recently
Speaker 1: lost their spouse and people who talked less about their
Speaker 1: grief or about the death of their spouse, were unhealthier,
Speaker 1: they had more health problems. And this is where this
Speaker 1: idea comes from, that talking about traumatic experiences is potentially
Speaker 1: more helpful. Often is more helpful than not, and so
Speaker 1: this is where this research on express of writing or
Speaker 1: journaling comes from. James Pennamaker wanted to see if he
Speaker 1: g people the chance to work through their trauma without
Speaker 1: the complication added by the other person potentially responding and
Speaker 1: a help or unhelpful way, you know, could they do better?
Speaker 1: And it turns out yes, if what you use your
Speaker 1: journaling for is to find a way forward. If you're
Speaker 1: just sort of ruminating on the past in your journal,
Speaker 1: now it's just a written record of harmful rumination, but
Speaker 1: you know what you want to do. If you feel
Speaker 1: really negative about something, and if you feel like you're
Speaker 1: perseverating on it and you feel like a bad person
Speaker 1: for it, that's a signal to me that you need
Speaker 1: to change something. And often that change of perspective is
Speaker 1: really easy to find when talking to another person. What
Speaker 1: another person can offer you that your journal can't is
Speaker 1: emotional support or is to call you out on something
Speaker 1: that is not healthy. These are things that are a
Speaker 1: lot easier for other people to do, and this is
Speaker 1: why I suggest for most all situations, talk to someone
Speaker 1: about your secret. They have so much to offer you
Speaker 1: when you do. And it turns out the average experience
Speaker 1: of confining a secret is one people say is helpful.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because they're choosing the right people, but even
Speaker 1: if someone responds just in a lukewarm way, people will
Speaker 1: find that even helpful. So we don't mean much when
Speaker 1: it comes to confining secrets and people have a lot
Speaker 1: to give.
Speaker 2: It's a really good message. Yeah, that's really really important.
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Speaker 2: three dimensions of secrets?
Speaker 1: So the three dimensions of secrets? You know, people often
Speaker 1: ask me you have these thirty category the secrets? Which
Speaker 1: ones hurt more or which ones are more okay to keep?
Speaker 1: And the question, the reason why that question is to
Speaker 1: open ended in that format, is well, thirty different kinds
Speaker 1: of secrets to give you a good answer to that question,
Speaker 1: to tell you how each category of secret is different
Speaker 1: from each other.
Speaker 3: Category of secret. And that's just too many.
Speaker 1: Comparisons, and so a better way to understand how secrets
Speaker 1: differ from each other. Sort of what the themes are
Speaker 1: we use in thinking about secrets is to understand could
Speaker 1: we sort them in a meaningful way? Turns out that
Speaker 1: we can. And to really well represent how people naturally
Speaker 1: think about their secrets is to be arrived at these
Speaker 1: three dimensions that come from not me, I'm not making
Speaker 1: these up. These came from the participant data themselves.
Speaker 2: Factors factors, yes.
Speaker 1: Right, factor analysis, but on data that was generated by participants.
Speaker 1: We didn't sort of give them the categories to begin with.
Speaker 1: And so one we've already talked about morality, This is
Speaker 1: the really big one. The more immoral we believe our
Speaker 1: secrets to be, the more we feel ashamed of them.
Speaker 1: Another dimension people see their secrets as naturally varying along
Speaker 1: is how much their secrets involve other people and our
Speaker 1: relationships with them. And so some secrets are really highly relational,
Speaker 1: all the ones about relationships, all the ones about sex.
Speaker 3: But other secrets don't.
Speaker 1: Involve other people, and these secrets feel much more personal
Speaker 1: and individual. You know, A hobby is an example of that.
Speaker 1: And it turns out the less the fewer people who
Speaker 1: are involved in our secrets when our secrets only involve ourselves.
Speaker 1: We feel more isolated with these secrets. The third dimension
Speaker 1: is how goal oriented the secrets are, and often that
Speaker 1: means in terms of our work life, but not always,
Speaker 1: and so secrets that are really high on goal orientation,
Speaker 1: you include secrets around finances and secrets about work. And
Speaker 1: then secrets really low on this dimension seem to not
Speaker 1: be based in some obvious goal. They seem to be
Speaker 1: based in more feeling. You know, things like sexual preferences,
Speaker 1: and you know, things that are more emotional in nature,
Speaker 1: experiences of trauma, things that are not directly linked to
Speaker 1: some goal that you're trying to achieve. And so the
Speaker 1: less our secrets are goal oriented, the less insight we
Speaker 1: feel we have into them, and we're not really sure
Speaker 1: why we have them or what to do with them.
Speaker 1: And the reason why it's so useful to know that
Speaker 1: there's three dimensions of secrets. It suggests that there's three
Speaker 1: ways in which a secret might hurt us. We could
Speaker 1: feel ashamed of a secret, we could feel isolated with
Speaker 1: a secret, or we could feel uncertain and unsure what
Speaker 1: to do with the secret. But if there's three ways
Speaker 1: in which a secret can hurt you, it also means
Speaker 1: there's three ways in which a secret doesn't have to
Speaker 1: hurt you. And the good news is that in ninety
Speaker 1: five percent of cases, we see there's a dimension in
Speaker 1: which secret is not hurting you. And what we do
Speaker 1: in the research is help people figure out what that
Speaker 1: is because it starts pointing you to a.
Speaker 3: Helpful path forward.
Speaker 1: And so once you understand these dimensions, you can say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, is one of these a path forward to me?
Speaker 1: So if you feel the secret is not wrong and
Speaker 1: a moral even if you feel isolated with it, even
Speaker 1: if you feel unsure about it. People pointing out to
Speaker 1: people that there's nothing wrong about the secret, it helps
Speaker 1: them move forward.
Speaker 2: This is really cool. This is a lot more levels
Speaker 2: of nuance about secrets than people are aware of. I'm
Speaker 2: glad we're having this conversation. So what are some tips
Speaker 2: to deflect direct questions in a conversation about a secret?
Speaker 1: So talking about secrets is helpful, but you need to
Speaker 1: be choosing the right person. And so if someone who
Speaker 1: would not be the right person to discuss the secret
Speaker 1: with is asking you a question that you don't want
Speaker 1: to answer, what can you do. One of the most
Speaker 1: effective things you can do is ask a question of
Speaker 1: your own, because the normal course of events is people
Speaker 1: ask answer questions that they were asked, and even though
Speaker 1: you haven't yet answered their question, if you ask a question,
Speaker 1: in most cases they'll just answer, and in most cases
Speaker 1: they won't even return to the original question. Because conversations
Speaker 1: move on, you can push into another direction, and so
Speaker 1: instead of asking a question, you can also just introduce
Speaker 1: a new topic into the conversation. Hey, what are you
Speaker 1: doing this weekend, and just like, hey, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the weekend instead of what we're talking about now, And
Speaker 1: in most cases people just will let the conversation move on.
Speaker 1: It's very rare someone will say no, no, no, what about
Speaker 1: that question I asked? You know, two conversational rounds ago,
Speaker 1: And so that will help you in almost all situations.
Speaker 1: What if someone had said really does press you on
Speaker 1: the question and you really don't want to answer it,
Speaker 1: You could say I don't want to speak to that.
Speaker 1: You could say you know that's through private. Those aren't
Speaker 1: the best responses, though. A far better response is to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I appreciate your question, or you know, I'm
Speaker 1: glad that you are there for me and asking this
Speaker 1: question and know that, like I value our relationship, I
Speaker 1: just don't want to get into that right now. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about that at some later point in time. And
Speaker 1: so essentially thanking them for trying to look out for
Speaker 1: you and just saying now it's not the right moment.
Speaker 1: People feel much better about that than just saying I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about that. Yeah, we don't want
Speaker 1: to think our friends, our and our significant others are
Speaker 1: not comfortable enough to reveal something to us, and so
Speaker 1: that's not the impression you want to give.
Speaker 2: Typically, that makes a lot of sense. What is the
Speaker 2: purpose of creative projects and outlets for secret revealing?
Speaker 1: There are these ways and post secret it's a great
Speaker 1: example of this. For if you can't find the right
Speaker 1: person to reveal a secret to one way forwards sort
Speaker 1: of just push that secret out into the world and
Speaker 1: that can feel good for a little bit. You know,
Speaker 1: we see in our research when people reveal secret anonymously online,
Speaker 1: it can lift the burden of secrecy at that moment
Speaker 1: when people look, you know, reveal secret in some anonymous
Speaker 1: way post secret or we have this thing that you
Speaker 1: might be lucky enough to stumble in Central Park where
Speaker 1: you find the secret telephone where you could listen to
Speaker 1: other secrets and reveal your own. What is helpful about
Speaker 1: all these forms of revelation is, you know, sometimes the
Speaker 1: hardest part is just admitting to yourself this thing happened
Speaker 1: and it's real and it really happened and nothing will
Speaker 1: change that. And so for many people the first step
Speaker 1: is kind of admitting to it out loud and some respect.
Speaker 1: But what's even more helpful than just, you know, releasing
Speaker 1: your secret, and so the ethor is observing how another
Speaker 1: person responds to it, and that's why conversation with another
Speaker 1: person is often much better. But if you're not ready
Speaker 1: for that, you know, maybe the first step is saying
Speaker 1: it out loud alone in the room.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Maybe the next step is revealing it anonymously through post
Speaker 1: secret or something like that. But I think what you
Speaker 1: want to work up to is talking to someone about it.
Speaker 2: I've never heard of post secrets. That's that's a new
Speaker 2: one for me.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's project that's been going
Speaker 1: on for a long time now and it's still ongoing.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: Well, I just want to end this interview on maybe
Speaker 2: the most positive note, which is what is uh, what
Speaker 2: are there. Don't know there exist positive secrets, you know,
Speaker 2: like when I tell like a surprise birthday party or
Speaker 2: like a promotion, the person's going to get so like
Speaker 2: that's yeah, can you talk a little more about you
Speaker 2: any research you've done in positive secrets?
Speaker 1: So, positive secrets can be really fun and exciting, and
Speaker 1: for that reason, they are very different from your prototypically
Speaker 1: negative secret. A couple's been trying to get pregnant and
Speaker 1: then is pregnant, they'll often keep that a secret to
Speaker 1: find the right time to tell everyone, find the exciting
Speaker 1: time to tell everyone. Any kind of surprise gift, marriage
Speaker 1: proposals commonly are kept secret too, And some of you know,
Speaker 1: life's most joyous occasions start off as secrets. And why
Speaker 1: those secrets are so different is often the whole point
Speaker 1: of the secrecy is this big exciting reveal, And when
Speaker 1: that's what the situation is, we feel very in control
Speaker 1: over the secret, and we feel good about the secret
Speaker 1: because it's about something positive and we expect a positive
Speaker 1: outcome to revealing it, and so we feel really in
Speaker 1: control over this, and so it's not just feeling positive,
Speaker 1: but feeling in control is really what's real. So healthy
Speaker 1: about this situation. There's another kind of positive secret though,
Speaker 1: that people don't necessarily have the intent to reveal. And
Speaker 1: that's what I call you know, what do I call these?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: I call these secret joys. And so, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of hobbies fit this category. You know, someone secretly
Speaker 1: collects coins, or someone secretly likes cartoons, or you know,
Speaker 1: for some people, recreational drug use. And so if the
Speaker 1: reason you don't tell other people about this is that
Speaker 1: you just don't want to deal with them not understanding,
Speaker 1: or maybe they might even disapprove. Another one example is,
Speaker 1: you know, meditation is another common one here, and so
Speaker 1: sometimes people think, I know I enjoy this, I know
Speaker 1: I'm doing it in the right way that's not harmful
Speaker 1: to me. Rather than deal with people not getting it,
Speaker 1: or rather than deal with people's disapproval, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to keep this to myself. And that kind of situation
Speaker 1: for me, it shows that there's other kinds of solitude
Speaker 1: than sort of this negative social isolation we kind of
Speaker 1: think of. When it's something you feel good about and
Speaker 1: you feel sure about it, you can feel a sense
Speaker 1: of independence and autonomy that comes from keeping the secret.
Speaker 1: Like if I think what It's like, well, if positive
Speaker 1: secrets feel so different, if we feel so in control
Speaker 1: over them and feel like we're doing the right thing
Speaker 1: for the right reasons, and we feel sure of ourselves,
Speaker 1: I think the question is, how can we feel that
Speaker 1: way about our other secrets?
Speaker 3: What could get us there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I've thought more about secrets in the past
Speaker 2: hour than I have my whole life, and I've just
Speaker 2: got so much I learned from you today, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure our listeners did as well. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for the work you've done over the over more than
Speaker 2: ten years of your career, and thanks for being to
Speaker 2: my podcast today. Thanks for really appreciate it. Thanks thanks
Speaker 2: for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If
Speaker 2: you'd like to react in some way to something you heard,
Speaker 2: I encourage you join in the discussion at thusycology podcast
Speaker 2: dot com. We're on our YouTube page thus Ecology Podcast.
Speaker 2: We also put up some videos of some episodes on
Speaker 2: our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check
Speaker 2: that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of
Speaker 2: the show, and tune in next time for more on
Speaker 2: the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.