How to stop your secrets from hurting your mental health | Michael Slepian

Columbia professor Michael Slepian collected thousands of secrets. They all had 3 things in common.

Up next, The psychology of keeping secrets inside

How many secrets are you holding right now? If the answer is around 13, you're about average, according to research on the nature of secrets.

Secrets aren't all bad. Some are rather trivial. But sometimes, keeping secrets can weigh us down and cause psychological distress.

Michael Slepian, an associate professor at Columbia Business School, has spent years studying the nature of secrets, why we hold them, and which kinds of secrets people tend to deem the most serious.

As Slepian explains in this Big Think video, his research has revealed that secrets can generally be sorted into three domains. Gaining a better understanding of your secrets can help you improve your well-being.

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About Michael Slepian:
Michael Slepian is the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School. He previously was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, and received his Ph.D. from Tufts University. He is an elected fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, has received the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, and received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

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Read more of our stories on secrets:
How many secrets are you holding from these 38 categories?
Why it’s time to confess your darkest secrets
Creative cheating: the link between creativity and dishonesty

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[userone]

Before I started my healing journey, the idea of openly discussing my addiction in public terrified me. But things changed—I'm into self-improvement and being part of a community felt amazing. It was a fresh experience with people I looked up to and new faces. I felt completely safe and supported. All of this played a role in my embracing the challenge.

[mindfulnesswithmatt]

Secrets are just ways we control information to maintain our self image and social acceptability. Interestingly enough, these days, oversharing has also become the norm, leading to an excess of "secret-sharing"

[josemarialaguinge]

I personally try to not have secrets, I do have things I would rather not share, but have no problem of sharing for the right human, or if I feel like that secret is choking me.

[Scootfairy]

I think this could be a useful way of understanding when a secret is toxic or not. Abused power often relies on secrets. You may want your government to keep secret their observation of the enemy to gain the upper hand, but you don’t want a a moral person to stay silent if that government is corrupt. This is probably the best exercise I heard that can help a person analyze a the value and quality of a secret in a cognitive way. Can be good since the most troubling secrets are the most emotional ones

[elinope]

My memory is shit. I got two people who I got no secrets from. If I can't tell it to them, I won't do it. I recommend this to everyone, have at least one person who you chose that you can tell everything too. Don't do anything that you won't tell someone that you personally trust and that will save you from doing stupid stuff that you regret and beat yourself up for later.

[urielpolak]

Having “secrets” is healthy. Its the idea we have about it being negative.knowledge is a big one. A teacher keeps knowledge a secret. To only relinquish it when the student is ready to receive. We have thoughts that are private by nature. Keeping them to ourselves is a secret yet we can realize its not our secret. Thought may wel be random as are dreams

[sophiaisabelle]

We appreciate content like this. It contains the most significant lessons.

[chadelliottyler]

Calling things “a secret” aside from illegal activity, implies that someone somewhere is entitled to the knowledge of my personal thoughts and actions. It really isn’t anyones business. Also I can’t think of a good reason why anyone would want to know any of those things.

[bigthink]

Are you a fan of Big Think? Check out bigthink.com for new articles every day!

[RayWalker-pythonic]

The problem with this is the assumption that everything should be shared. On the contrary, our lives should be assumed to be private and only parts shared with discretion.

The question at any given moment is: why should this be shared with anyone?

[coalfpv]

just sounds like the degrees of the same thing: what society as a whole would think, what the people closest to you would think, and what you yourself think.

[alexandrgareev]

actually, i'm hiding nothing anymore. i guess i've already reached the bottom of the misery. wait, who's knocking? oh, it's me from below, again.

[bendesle]

This guy probably keeps dinner a secret until he’s done cooking it

[hristopher]

I think having secrets is good for your sanity

[enough]

The thing is that I found out two huge family secrets. Huge! I will not tell! Will hurt way too many, so I will carry the crushing reality!
I won’t hurt, I won’t hurt others. Let them do the hurting, for the monster came out and now we are all heartbroken M
God help humanity….we are so dysfunctional!

[baihongliang]

These "dimensions" look more like variables.

[MissMentats]

What about people who are terrible at keeping any secrets… like they totally would keep a bunch of stuff secret if they could, they just accidentally keep telling people all the things…?

[cix]

Thanks for this video, I will share with my wife's boyfriend.

[LeanAndMean]

Every experience you have had which only you and someone else who doesn’t have anything to do with your daily life, know of, can be called a secret. I refuse to believe it’s only 13 then. What really is important about secrets are those who are more like „confidential“, if the information is shared it will harm one or more people. I recommend watching the series blacklist, it has great reflections and speculations about secrets and other topics associated with tabu, dilemma and suffering.

[vrstovsek]

What I've learned from this video: absolutely nothing