Episode 010: Secret Life Of Secrets
In Shake It Off Episode 10 Dr. Lauren Hodge speaks with special guest Michael Slepian.
Michael is a behavioral scientist and the author of The Secret Life of Secrets. He is also the leading expert on the psychology of secrets and associate professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia University.
During this episode, Lauren and Michael talk about secrets. They cover why we keep secrets, science-based strategies to cope with the secrets we keep, and the impact of secrets on our well-being.
(Kendra was away at an incredible and comprehensive Pilates conference while we recorded this episode -she’ll be back for episode 11!)
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Lauren Hodge
Today we are chatting with behavioral scientist Michael Slepian, the author of The Secret Life Of Secrets. He is the leading expert on the psychology of secrets and an associate professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia University. And his book covers science stories and practical strategies to cope with the secrets we keep. When reading your book, Michael, I learned that on average, we’re keeping as many as 13 secrets at any given time, and some of the most common secrets that we keep include things like addiction, mental health challenges, hidden relationships, and financial struggles. And your research involves more than 50,000 participants from across the world, which is an incredible amount of people to survey and collect data on. So I can imagine that this is over a number of years of work, where you’re collecting all of this data.
Your book really opened up a lot of interesting conversations and reflective conversations between me and some of my friends as well. So questions like, would you want to know if your partner cheated? If it were definitely never going to happen again, and if it was a one-off incident. Those are the types of things that I was really reflecting on because I had not actually asked myself those questions. But before we get into all of that, I would love to hear from you more about what are secrets. If you were to give a definition of secrets, how would you describe that?
Michael Slepian
The definition turns out to be important because prior work before my research, turns out to be a very narrow definition, and it’s the reason we haven’t known about secrets for so long. The way people used to think about secrecy, and the way researchers use to define secrecy as an action, that is you are in conversation with someone, and something about that conversation leads you to have to actively conceal the secret in that social interaction. So that’s what prior studies would do, they would put two people into a room and have one person conceal from the other while the other person was asking questions related to the secret. But it turns out, that’s a very specific situation, and it’s not even a common one.
For most of our secrets, it’s very rare that we have to conceal them, but we can think about them all the time. So I define secrecy as the intention to withhold information from one or more people. And so as soon as you intend to keep something secret, that’s when you have a secret, and that secret can affect you and will affect you, even before you ever have the chance to hide it in conversation.
Lauren Hodge
That’s so interesting, I hadn’t thought about that, that most often we are not asked about our secret. So it’s not that you’re being forced to keep it a secret. It’s that you’re holding it in and that you know that information. Okay, so as a behavioral scientist, and as somebody whose most of my work has been done in parenting and family support, I’m interested to know, at what age do children develop that cognitive ability or capacity for secrecy?
Michael Slepian
So it emerges gradually and over the years, and so even really young children as young as two or three might try to keep a secret, although not very effectively. One parent told me about her child who said he didn’t eat a cookie, except he had cookie crumbs all over his lips. And then another parent told me that her three-year-old daughter said she hadn’t gotten into her mother’s makeup, yet she had lipstick smeared all over her face. And so in those early years, kids will try to keep a secret by simply denying it. But more complex forms of secrecy take some more time in order to more competently keep a secret and recognize that something in my head is not necessarily in your head, you need to have a really good understanding of how people’s minds work and how they’re only aware of things that they were a witness to.
So around comes the age of four or five or so children start having a good sense of when people can hold a belief that is wrong, that is they have this sort of false belief about some state of the world, and to understand that requires some skills that don’t come around until four or five when children really have an understanding of the sort of what’s in their heads and what’s in other people’s heads and how those things can differ. And then when kids get a little bit older, around six and older, and then they start having sort of more believable stories around their secrets, for example, blaming a broken vase on a cat rather than a ghost.
Lauren Hodge
As far as why children keep secrets, is that also different from adults? Just think that you’re saying with adults, it’s intentionally holding something back or holding back a piece of information. But is it the same for children?
Michael Slepian
There’s one kind of secrecy that cuts throughout the lifespan, whether you’re a kid or an adult and that’s going to avoid punishment. That’s definitely a common reason kids will keep secrets, they’ve made some kind of an accidental mess, spilled something, or broken something, and they don’t want to get in trouble for it, because who would? And sometimes they might try to keep that a secret.
As adults, we do that too, of course. But there is something that’s unique about kids and their secrets, and it’s something that I think adults too often forget about, which is if you ask a young child, what is the secret, they might say it’s something you would only tell your best friend, if you ask a child, what makes someone your best friend, they might say, well, you can tell them your secrets without them making fun of you. So they really associate secrets with a sense of intimacy, it’s something you only share with special people. That’s a lot more obvious to see in children. As adults, we forget about that. We forget that you can make yourself vulnerable and reveal something to someone, and it’s a way to deepen a relationship. We normally think of these secrets as things that sort of hurt our relationships, but they don’t have to.
Lauren Hodge
So it definitely sounds like children, they’re looking at secrets as a way of not getting punished, and so do adults, but just in a different form. I think that is so interesting to think about. I can think of secrets from when I was a child and the reason for holding things back, but it is kind of related at the same time as an adult. If we’re thinking about the common secrets that come up, the reason that you might withhold information about like a mental health challenge, or a financial struggle, depending on who the person is that you’re holding that information from, it might be that you don’t want to lose a job, or you don’t want to lose your partner or whatever the things that you think could come from that.
So what is an example of a secret that might negatively impact your mental health? I understand from reading your book, there are different types of weights of a secret that we hold can kind of be different depending on maybe the type of secret. What would be an example of one that might negatively impact your mental health?
Michael Slepian
So this serves as a good way to bridge what we were just talking about enhancing your question, which is that there is this shift that happens in adolescence, where we start coming to the kind of secrets now that hurt our health and our well-being. What the shift becomes is essentially concerned with social approval, which really comes in a big way for teenagers, right? So that’s when they might be so concerned about social approval, that they’ll not discuss something with a trusted friend, not discuss some worry they have or some struggle they have or something they feel ashamed with.
Our fear of how others respond to [our secrets] clips our ability to place trust in them. That’s when secrets start hurting us. So when it’s the secret you feel ashamed with, that’s a secret that’s gonna hurt to keep if it’s a secret you feel isolated with, that’s also going to be a secret that hurts. If you just feel really uncertain, and you’re not sure what to do with it, that kind of secret also will hurt your health and well-being.
Lauren Hodge
So the secrets that we’re not feeling like it would be socially acceptable to share with other people, or the ones that we’re holding alone and that we can’t share with somebody else. Is that right?
Michael Slepian
We have this idea that there are some secrets we can’t share because people are gonna respond so poorly or we’re gonna be too embarrassed. But it turns out that most experiences of confiding a secret in another person go pretty well. Our worst fear, it’s very rare that they ever materialize. People respond more positively than we expect they would.
Lauren Hodge
So then there is the part about kind of carrying the secret alone and not telling others. The reason that’s probably kind of harmful to us is that it can be isolating, and then if you’re really holding it in, then you could start ruminating on that.
Michael Slepian
Exactly. So even when this is a secret that you don’t have to frequently hide in conversation, you have all the time in the world to think about the secret in your own thoughts, and if you’re choosing to be alone with something that’s really significant or important, or something that’s bothering you, it’s really likely you’re going to find an unhealthy way of thinking about it if you’re doing it entirely alone. But simply discussing it with another person can make the world of difference there.
Lauren Hodge
So is that the key to the kind of coping with the secrets that are waiting on us, is to have a conversation with somebody?
Michael Slepian
Yes, we see that when people confide in someone that they trust, they typically receive emotional support and some sort of practical support, and the reason why revealing a secret so often benefits us is not that it reduces the need to hide the secret at later time points.
For example, if I reveal the secret to you, but still keep it from other people, it’s not going to change how much I hide it from other people. But it does change how I think about it, just a simple conversation with someone else will change how I think about the secret and for the better, because the other person has a unique set of experiences and perspectives that they can share with you that you can’t find on your own, they can give you emotional support. Also, something that you really can’t find on your own. There’s so much to offer in helping you find a way forward just from talking with someone else.
Lauren Hodge
That’s so important. A couple of things come to mind for me here, and I probably don’t do a whole lot of revealing of my own personal stories on the podcast. But one truth for me is that I had a major secret when I was a child, and it actually probably became a secret. Whenever I was 18, I signed a gag order that I wouldn’t speak about certain child abuse that I experienced from the age of 10 to 17, and it was actually interesting, because at that point, I went to therapists for a couple of visits, and so I had someone to speak to for a couple of sessions about that. But it was actually the holding it in over probably more of like this eight-year period afterward, where I noticed rumination starting. I would think that in my 20s, conversations about certain topics would come up, especially when me too movement happened, and I was feeling very much connected to that through my childhood experience that I wouldn’t like to hold it in anymore.
It’s actually interesting that the big thing is sharing it with other people because as soon as I started to open up about it, and stopped worrying so much about the Gag order and not being able to speak about it was when I was able to find the appropriate therapy that then eventually helped me to heal and treat PTSD, which is a lot of rumination. I think that this is so incredible in that when we’re thinking about children or young adults as far as the secrets that they’re keeping, having that safe person for them to speak to. I think it was really pivotal for me whenever I started to be able to slowly talk about my experiences.
Michael Slepian
Hearing your story reminds me of a woman who wrote about keeping her husband’s depression secret. He was depressed, and she really didn’t want anyone to know about this, so he asked her not to and if she of course respected his wishes for years and years until it became too hard. It just became so difficult to have this huge thing going on in your life that you’re not discussing with the people around you. So she started telling people even though she wasn’t supposed to, and it just made everything better. She realized wow, this is actually not an uncommon experience. Other people struggle with this too, other people struggle with having a partner who’s struggling with mental health and they’re just all around these people who could help her and she had no idea.
Lauren Hodge
It normalizes your experience when you’re able to reveal those things all the other people might not have the same exact experience of it, they can at least relate to where you’re at and what you’re going through. There are support groups and that sort of thing that is also really useful for that. So then I have another question that kind of leads on from this because I also think about how humans are wired for connection, and that holding in parts of our inner world can often be lonely and isolating, and isolation can often lead to depression and burnout. So I’m curious, do you think that we can have secrets and still connect and be known or how can we still hold secrets, and still connect and be known by other people?
Michael Slepian
The distinction that comes in handy between confession and confiding, when I say confession, and revealing a secret to the person or people you’re specifically keeping it from another option, and there are all kinds of risks involved in that. And it really depends on what we’re talking about, what the issue is and who the person is, your relationship with them, and so on. But one thing you can do before you even consider confessing, or maybe the right thing to do is to not confess.
This doesn’t mean you have to suffer entirely alone, because there are all the other people out there, who you can talk to about the secret, you can reveal a secret to a third party while still keeping it from the person or people you’re keeping it from. That’s what turns out to be so beneficial when it’s a third party, when there are not going to be immediate consequences to what would happen if you confessed it to the person, that person gives you help. While if you still need to maintain the secret, you can still do so. But now you have a healthier relationship with a secret once you talk about it with other people and sort of find ways forward with it.
Lauren Hodge
Okay, so that is really a third party that could be a therapist or coach, or just anyone that’s kind of removed from that immediate situation.
Michael Slepian
Exactly, and so a therapist is one option, but another option is a friend that you trust. People like to confide in people who they see as compassionate. So someone who will be nonjudgmental, and empathic and sort of be there for you and be able to provide emotional support. People also like to confide in people who are assertive, people who will push you to do the thing that you need to do, other things you should consider when trying to decide who to confide in are essential, does this person have a similar set of morals as you?
If revealing your secret is good to totally scandalize this person if they’re going to find it totally morally objectionable. Don’t talk about it with them, we find in our research that when someone believes what you’ve just confided in them is morally wrong, they’re more likely to talk to someone about it essentially, as a form of punishment. So you want to be mindful about who you choose. Then the final thing to think about is, does revealing this secret to this person, now all of a sudden implicate them in the problem now? Do they have to carry the secret for you too? Something to keep in mind.
Lauren Hodge
Yeah, that’s so interesting. I think about that, not to make this about me and my situation from the past. But I think about that with this GAG order that I signed and I’m not allowed to talk to anybody about it. However, I have a therapist that I talked to and I kind of made a decision at some point within my early 30s, when I was going through a really tough time, that my mental health mattered more than this GAG order, which was saying that I couldn’t reveal information, but I do think that having that third party is what allowed me to talk the most about that incident.
So I definitely think that that makes a lot of sense to me. I just really appreciate your kind of consolidating this all into one book and providing this information. I have one other question for you. If there was one thing that you wanted people to know about the book or about your research on secrets, and they were to take one big point away, what would that piece of information be?
Michael Slepian
It would be that if there’s a secret that you’re struggling with or that’s making you feel isolated or ashamed or just anything that’s bothering you, you don’t have to do it alone. If you’re not sure what to do with this information if you’re not sure if you should confess or come forward you don’t have to figure that out on your own either. You can talk to someone else and most people, especially the people that you carefully select, those people are going to be able to help.
Lauren Hodge
Thank you. So we have one Rapid Fire question that we asked at the end of each episode. And because of that, this podcast is really about mental health and physical health strategies. I can imagine that writing this book, and pulling together your research from so many years would have been really stressful. And I’m curious, what is your go-to strategy for maintaining your mental health or your physical health? Whenever you’re experiencing a lot of stress or a lot of transitions and changes in life?
Michael Slepian
I have two things to answer, one is having a supportive partner is so amazing when there’s this big challenge that you’re you’re struggling with and finding your way through just having someone who’s there for you and understands you’re going through it and sort of can help with some small things when you’re too stressed, makes such a difference. Also, I love you going out for a run, and I found that was always a useful way to sort of clear my mind if I needed to do that or try to solve some problem that it was stuck on to try to figure that out while thinking about it while running.
Lauren Hodge
That’s great, and I will say that that is our connection. My connection with Michael is that I did my doctoral research and my Ph.D. at the same university as Rachel, and that’s how I know Michael. I actually went to their wedding in Brisbane, Australia. So yes, I can imagine she’s an incredible support to have gone through this process of launching the book even and everything else. So where can our listeners find your book?
Michael Slepian
You can find The Secret Life Of Secrets wherever you buy books. If you want more information about the research, you can go to michaelslepian.com, or you can look up the book.
