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0:55

You and Betty and the Nancy

0:57

season pills and Joe's and James

1:00

will find in the study of science

1:02

a richer, more rewarding

1:04

life.

1:06

And welcome to inquiring minds. I'm

1:09

Contus. This is a podcast that

1:11

explores the space where science and

1:13

society collide. We wanna find

1:15

out what's true, what's left to discover

1:17

and why it matters.

1:26

Hey, wanna

1:28

know secret? Yeah, I bet

1:30

you do. We all do. But

1:32

isn't that bizarre I mean,

1:34

what is it about secrets? Knowing

1:37

that someone else knows something that you don't

1:39

know that can just drive us baddie

1:41

And also holding on to a secret.

1:44

Well, it can just make you wanna

1:46

throw up or feel totally uncomfortable

1:48

in your own skin. Now, did

1:50

you know that there is a leading expert

1:52

on the psychology of secrets? Well,

1:55

he's Michael Slappian, and he's a professor

1:57

of leadership and ethics at Columbia University.

1:59

the

2:00

And hey, he just got tenure.

2:02

So that means that his work has gotta

2:04

be good. And Beyond his

2:07

fifty empirical articles on

2:09

secrecy, truth, and deception, he's

2:11

also had his research covered by the New

2:13

York times, the Atlantic, the New Yorker,

2:15

the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the

2:17

BBC, and NPR. So

2:20

maybe we can't share each other's secrets.

2:22

but at least we can learn more about the

2:24

psychology behind them.

2:26

Michael's

2:31

Levy and welcome to inquiring my friends.

2:33

Thanks

2:33

for having me. So

2:34

secrets. You know,

2:37

I have a secret that I'm holding onto as

2:39

I'm sure so many people

2:41

that you studied do. In fact, quite a few

2:43

secrets. And I, you know,

2:45

reading your book, it's amazing to me how

2:47

much just thinking about

2:49

the secret

2:50

eats away at me. I mean, I literally feel

2:53

in my stomach this like

2:56

gnawing.

2:57

So Let's

2:59

dive right into the effect of

3:01

holding secrets on our well-being. Like, why does

3:03

it sometimes make us feel so bad

3:05

physically? One

3:06

of the most frustrating parts of

3:08

having a secret is the moment you

3:10

intend to keep a secret is the moment

3:13

you have that secret. Well, before

3:15

you ever have the opportunity to hide it in

3:17

converse station. And so at the moment

3:19

you decide to keep something a secret, your mind

3:21

is going to turn to that thing time and

3:23

time again because what it means to have a secret is

3:25

you wanna be ready for any conversation out

3:27

there in the world related to your secret.

3:29

But that increased sensitivity to

3:32

anything related to your secret will mean

3:34

that you think about it even

3:36

when you're alone in a room. And

3:38

this turns out to be one of the main

3:40

problems we often our minds are

3:42

sort of attracted to our secrets for this reason.

3:45

And because we are choosing

3:47

to be alone with most of those secrets,

3:49

we often don't develop healthy ways of

3:51

thinking about them. So we're kinda stuck thinking about

3:53

this thing. in an unhelpful way

3:55

on our own. So I

3:57

wanna talk a little bit about the difference between

3:59

intention and action. I mean, there

4:01

are things that we do that you know,

4:03

we don't want people to know about, but

4:05

it doesn't become the kind of, like,

4:07

intent to hold this secret. We kinda just

4:10

let it go. We figure we got away with it.

4:12

It's not gonna no one's gonna find out this is no big

4:14

deal. But then, as you mentioned, that there's this,

4:17

like, intention component. So, like,

4:19

what's the difference between intention and action?

4:21

And how does that relate to its effects on our

4:23

well-being? Howard Bauchner: What

4:24

we used to think about secrecy the

4:27

sort of old idea. And the very intuitive

4:29

idea is the action is

4:31

the problem. Sort of hiding a secret

4:33

in conversation feels

4:35

awkward or stressful and that

4:37

over time acts as a cumulative

4:39

stressor, which can wear away

4:41

at our health and maybe our relationships as

4:44

well.

4:45

And

4:46

it turns out that that is

4:48

not exactly right. Where that idea

4:50

comes from is a few experiments where people

4:52

sort create the concealment situation of

4:54

laboratory. And the problem with

4:56

those studies that turns out is they don't really

4:58

look like what secrecy looks like in the real

5:00

world, and there's plenty of secrets that are,

5:03

we could say, easy to keep in the sense

5:05

that they're not difficult to maintain in a

5:07

conversation. You know, even if someone

5:09

asks you a question directly related to secret,

5:11

which really rarely happens, but even in

5:13

that sort of worst case scenario, you

5:15

don't reveal it. And

5:17

and it's not so difficult because

5:19

you're mostly error for these moments. And

5:21

then much more frequently, something

5:24

about the conversation makes you think about the secret

5:26

and you hold back, and that

5:28

also isn't typically very hard. And

5:30

so the average secret is not difficult

5:32

to hide in conversation, but

5:34

the average secret is difficult to

5:36

live with. on your own.

5:38

And when you choose to be alone with something,

5:40

that's when the problems can begin.

5:43

And so just the mere intention of

5:45

hiding a secret whenever necessary

5:48

can set up all these stressful processes

5:50

even when you don't even have to hide the secret

5:53

at all.

5:53

And I feel like some secrets kind of

5:55

wax and wane. Like, there are times where, you

5:58

know, you know, I have a I have

5:59

a secret. I go and talk to

6:02

you know, my therapist or

6:04

my best friend or whatever. I divulge

6:07

the secret, I feel better, you

6:09

know, they reassure me that, like,

6:11

you know, if there's a dilemma

6:13

of whether or not I should reveal the secret

6:15

to someone who might be affected of it and, like, you

6:17

know, no, you shouldn't or, you know, whatever. And

6:19

then But then, like and then you feel

6:21

better for a while. And then something

6:23

like, oh, I don't know, reading your book.

6:26

Trinkers. Like, the the

6:29

resurgence of anxiety about

6:31

keeping this secret. So, like, why is it that we

6:33

can't just hold on to, like,

6:35

once we've just decided it's

6:37

not a threat. Why does it

6:39

continue to, like, pop back up

6:41

at in opportune moments? Yeah.

6:43

So first of all, my apologies. You're

6:45

right that the sort of burden of a secret

6:47

sort of waxes and wanes and xor

6:49

comes and goes, and sometimes it's

6:51

really relevant to what's going on and sometimes

6:54

less so. And, you know, there's kind of good news

6:56

there, which is if it's difficult

6:58

today, it might not be difficult next

7:00

week. But when it becomes difficult

7:02

again, for me, it's a

7:04

signal that there's some work to do.

7:06

It's a secret sort of gnawing at

7:09

you and bothering you. To me, it suggests

7:11

there's something unresolved. And that's

7:13

often what happens with most secrets. You know,

7:15

when when there's something bothering us and when

7:17

there's something we're struggling with,

7:19

We talk about it with other people because other

7:21

people are so useful to help us

7:23

figure things out. You know, this is

7:25

how we go through life. We get help from

7:27

the people around us. And by

7:29

not doing that, then we're

7:31

sort of setting ourselves up to potentially

7:33

feel ashamed or isolated or

7:36

inauthentic for having a secret.

7:38

and that's when the secret can glance down. You

7:40

also mentioned that there is a relationship between

7:43

certain personality traits and

7:45

the way in which we keep secrets or how

7:47

much they affect us. So tell us a little bit about

7:50

that relationship. Howard Bauchner: So there's

7:52

a few different ways of thinking about this question.

7:55

And so we'll start with something that

7:57

feels very intuitive and obvious. Extraverted

7:59

people keep

8:01

your secrets. I think that

8:03

makes a lot of sense, but

8:05

you know, it's it's still very interesting that

8:07

people who really enjoy social interactions, you

8:09

know. So much of our life isn't

8:11

revealing secrets and just because someone's really social

8:13

doesn't mean they would spill

8:15

their secrets more, but they

8:17

do. But what's interesting is extroverted

8:20

people while they keep fewer secrets,

8:22

they also get more involved in the

8:24

kinds of such situations that people

8:26

keep secret. Right. And

8:28

then conscientiousness sort of

8:30

diligence and carefulness is related

8:32

to getting less involved in the kinds

8:34

of situations people keep secret, but

8:36

keeping more of them secret. And so

8:39

this is sort of where the complications are. You

8:42

know, you there's certain behaviors

8:44

that are very common when it comes to

8:46

secrets, you know, whether it's cheating or infidelity

8:49

or having done something wrong.

8:51

And to understand the effects of having

8:53

those as secrets, we want to understand

8:56

the unique part about the secrecy sort of

8:58

irrespective of what the secret is about.

9:00

And so in my studies, we have

9:02

this list of common secrets that

9:04

people keep. thirty eight categories turns out

9:06

to really well cover

9:08

what people commonly keep secret. And in my

9:10

studies, we essentially recognize people have

9:12

multiple secrets. not all of those

9:14

secrets will hurt you. And so the question is,

9:16

which? And when we look at this

9:18

sort of broad set of secrets, we could start

9:20

asking irrespective of what the

9:22

secrets are about, why

9:24

do our secrets so often hurt us?

9:26

Yeah.

9:26

So let's talk about that. Is there a

9:29

sort of set of features of a

9:31

secret that is more likely to hurt

9:33

us than one that is more

9:35

benign, like a malignant versus

9:37

kids, you know, benign tumor.

9:39

Yes. And

9:39

there turns out to be three such

9:42

features. And so the way

9:44

we found that is we've looked at all these

9:46

common seekers people keep. this

9:48

list of thirty eight categories of secrets.

9:50

We know it really covers what people keep

9:52

secret very well because the average person

9:54

at any given time has thirteen secrets from

9:57

that list of thirty eight. When we

9:59

ask people open ended, what's a secret you're keeping?

10:01

Ninety two percent of the time if it's one of these

10:03

items from the list. And so the

10:05

list just captures all the things

10:07

you think it would capture things

10:09

about relationships and sex and family

10:11

and, you know, deception and ambition.

10:13

They're not all negative, but

10:16

most of them are. And

10:18

in order to understand the

10:20

features that are related to what

10:22

makes secrets harmful. What we would need to

10:24

understand is essentially how do secrets differ

10:26

from each other or or what ways in

10:28

what ways are those categories of secrets similar

10:30

to or different from each other. and

10:32

it turns out we can describe the

10:34

sort of space of secrecy with

10:36

three dimensions by which I mean

10:38

the first one is the biggest one

10:41

how morally wrong do you think

10:43

this behavior is? And the

10:45

more morally wrong you think your secret

10:47

is, the more ashamed you feel of

10:49

it. The next one is essentially how much

10:51

the secret involves other people. And

10:53

the less the secret involves other

10:55

people, the less that involves your relationships

10:57

with other people, the more personal it feels.

11:00

the more isolating it feels to

11:02

keep. And the third one

11:04

is whether the secret is related to your

11:06

goals and aspirations, which often

11:08

revolves around work, but not always.

11:10

And so the less

11:12

your secret involves

11:14

some clear goal or

11:17

aspiration the less insight you

11:19

feel you have into the secret. These

11:21

these are sort of secrets that are more emotional

11:23

and tone. We often feel like we don't

11:25

understand them well. And

11:27

so The bad news is that a

11:29

secret can hurt you in these three different

11:31

ways. But the good news is

11:33

it's very, very rare that

11:36

it hurts you in all three of the ways. Meaning, it's

11:38

a very it's the normal course

11:40

of events. I think we see ninety five percent of the time

11:42

in our data one of those three harms

11:44

I mentioned does not apply to

11:46

your situation. And what

11:48

you wanna do is recognize that

11:50

because that sort of helps you find

11:52

your path forward understanding

11:55

the way in which your secret is not

11:57

hurting you? Yeah. I mean,

11:58

I the one the one kind of

11:59

secret that comes to mind, which I

12:02

wanna say unequivocally I am not holding

12:04

is like data fraud, which would

12:06

be both involving other

12:08

people you know,

12:10

affecting your career and

12:12

morally wrong. Do

12:15

you ever come up with or come into

12:17

situations, you know, like as someone who's

12:19

done brain imaging, I've found

12:21

myself in the unfortunate position

12:23

to, you know, see someone's brain scan and and

12:25

there'd be a clear finding and then having to grapple

12:27

with whether or not you tell that person. When it

12:30

comes to these kinds of secrets, to you somebody

12:32

ever reveals something to you that then you

12:34

feel morally responsible to

12:36

tell someone else about whether it's an

12:38

authority or I

12:40

don't know, another person? One

12:42

time ever. This

12:44

has happened to me in a way that

12:46

felt very dramatic. in

12:48

the book I talked about this project

12:50

that I was more of a helping hand in

12:53

other folks talented folks were in

12:55

charge of this project, and it was called the secret

12:57

telephone. And

13:00

what happened is essentially it's this

13:02

art project that sort of appears

13:04

in in different parks around New

13:06

York City. And it's this

13:08

telephone, this like old fashioned looking

13:10

telephone, and it

13:12

says secret telephone, you know, get

13:14

something off your chest. And if you happen to stumble

13:16

across this phone, you can pick it up, you can

13:18

listen in the receiver to other secrets

13:20

people have previously shared. and

13:22

you can leave your own secret.

13:25

And the first

13:28

day we launched this, someone

13:30

admitted to something let's

13:33

say, violent. Oh, wow. Really

13:35

well captures what what was

13:37

said, and we just were like,

13:39

whoa. what

13:42

do we do with this? We brought it to the

13:44

police and they were like, yeah, that's we

13:46

can't do anything with this, but that was the

13:48

one time only. that I ever encountered

13:50

that. It was like we

13:52

were just like, what do we do here? How do we

13:54

handle this? So we we tried to do the

13:56

right thing. But yeah.

13:58

So I

13:59

wanna talk a little bit about, you know,

14:02

we tend to think of secrets as

14:04

being kind of maybe distinctly human.

14:06

It's

14:06

hard to imagine other

14:09

animals keep secrets, although I can imagine that,

14:11

you know, France de Wall would probably

14:13

disagree. with, like, other

14:15

non human primates. And we could talk

14:17

about that. But also,

14:19

you know, there there is a

14:21

time when children

14:23

begin to be

14:25

deceptive. And it's a to me, you

14:28

know, it's very clear when that moment

14:30

happens and, like, they kinda, like, look

14:32

at you. Like, they're testing out

14:34

this new new thing of

14:36

lying. Can

14:38

you tell me a little bit about like what we

14:40

know about in terms of the the

14:42

cognitive requirements, whether it's,

14:44

like, specific to our species or

14:46

during our developmental trajectory that

14:49

allow us to keep secrets. First off,

14:51

And then secondly, that

14:53

then allow those secrets

14:55

to make us feel bad. I

14:57

mean, there are times like I remember when my my

15:00

daughter first deceived me. I got the impression

15:02

that it did not make her feel bad.

15:05

She didn't. You know, but

15:07

as as as my, you know, my son's gotten

15:09

older. I feel like the secrets do

15:11

seem to weigh on him in a way they didn't

15:13

when he was younger.

15:14

Yeah. So in their earliest

15:16

of years, so the first thing to in order to

15:18

be able to keep a secret competently, you

15:21

need to have an understanding that there's something

15:23

in your head that is not necessarily

15:25

in the other person's head unless you

15:27

share it with them. And

15:29

kids develop this

15:31

understanding of

15:33

what other minds

15:35

are sort of aware of gradually.

15:38

You know, by ages four and

15:40

five, it starts developing, and it starts getting

15:42

sharper with with later years.

15:44

And so in their earliest years,

15:46

kids will try to keep a secret by simply

15:49

denying something. It's not

15:51

very artful. So for

15:53

example, a parent told me a story

15:55

about a child

15:57

who denied eating cookies, but had

15:59

cookie crumbs over his lips. And and,

16:01

you know, another one told me a story

16:03

of her daughter, her three year old

16:05

daughter who denied, you know,

16:07

getting into her mother's makeup, but with

16:09

lipstick smeared all over her face. And

16:11

so, you know, they're just starting to

16:13

understand that maybe there's a way

16:15

that they can conceal this thing

16:17

from their parents, if their parents don't yet

16:19

know about it. And as

16:21

they get older, they start getting a better

16:23

sense of what's essentially

16:25

a believable story to tell them to to

16:27

make that happen. And so, you know, by age six, for

16:30

example, then they start having a much better sense of

16:32

what is a more believable story to

16:34

tell. in order to keep a secret, for example,

16:36

saying the cat

16:38

broke the vase rather than a ghost.

16:40

And so as they're getting

16:42

older, they're having a sharper sense

16:44

for this idea that if they

16:46

were the only witness to something,

16:48

other people don't know about it. And

16:51

you can keep it that way if

16:53

you sort of carefully say the

16:55

right thing. It doesn't

16:57

seem like kids feel

16:59

bad about these sort of secrets

17:02

because I think they mostly involve what we would

17:04

consider pretty minor in discretions in in

17:06

the grand scheme of things. kids can

17:08

only get into so much trouble.

17:10

But as they get into their teenage

17:12

years, their secrets certainly

17:15

have a much they

17:17

certainly can get get into more trouble and they can

17:19

be dealing with more complex struggles, you

17:21

know, struggles of shame and

17:23

maybe struggling with schoolers struggling you know, friends

17:25

or whatever. And

17:28

essentially, as soon as children

17:31

will hold something back

17:33

because they're worried about the

17:35

social disapproval that could come from

17:37

admitting something as soon as

17:39

they let you know, fear for how other people will

17:41

respond to clips their ability to place trust

17:43

in others. That's when secrecy

17:45

is clearly related to

17:47

lower well-being. You know,

17:49

there's one

17:49

thing that you pointed out in

17:51

your discussion of sort of the kind of

17:53

cognitive development required to keep secrets

17:56

that really I

17:58

had never thought about, which is the fact

18:00

that in order to kind of

18:02

understand the complexity or how to keep

18:04

a good secret, children have to be

18:06

better aware of how

18:08

their memories work or like that, you know,

18:10

that they have to you know, there's this,

18:13

like, so so about sort of like

18:15

how kids early on remember their

18:17

past experiences and then what is the leap that

18:19

needs to be made in order

18:21

to then effectively keep

18:24

a secret. Yeah. One of

18:25

the most fascinating things I

18:28

uncovered when writing the

18:30

chapter on secret keeping and

18:32

kids was this idea that

18:34

children are

18:36

not initially paying

18:38

attention to their inner world. essentially,

18:41

you know, a good example of this

18:43

is a study asked,

18:45

I wanna say five year olds

18:48

to think about a toothbrush.

18:50

And, you know, most people in the world put

18:52

their toothbrush in a in a very special you

18:54

know, in a certain place

18:57

you know, think for a moment about

18:59

where that place might be. And

19:01

of course, everyone puts their toothbrush in

19:03

the bathroom. And, you know, after

19:05

a few moments, the the researcher asked the child, what were

19:07

you just thinking about? And

19:10

most kids were like, nothing.

19:13

And it's they certainly were thinking

19:15

about the bathroom before, but they just

19:17

weren't they're just mind moved on

19:19

and they weren't reflecting on their

19:21

own mental processes. you

19:23

know, in what's essential in order to keep a secret, you need to

19:25

be aware of your own mental contents

19:28

and and what's in there. And

19:30

as you get a better understanding

19:33

that you have these memories that are from your

19:35

past. Other people

19:37

won't be aware of those memories if they

19:39

weren't there at the same time. And

19:41

that's when we get the you

19:43

know, and that's when we have the ingredients to keep a secret. Howard

19:46

Bauchner: Yeah. And then,

19:46

of course, you you also talk about

19:49

how during the pandemic for

19:51

the For the teenage kids

19:53

that were teenagers in the beginning of the pandemic

19:55

during the lockdown, that this actually had

19:57

a pretty significant effect when we

19:59

know

19:59

their mental health was affected? Can you

20:02

tell us what the relationship is

20:04

between sort of secret holding

20:06

and this isolation that a

20:08

lot of teenagers found themselves in?

20:10

Yeah.

20:11

It's it's so easy

20:14

to find the worst way of thinking

20:16

about something when you're alone.

20:18

with it. You know, we don't have other people to sort

20:21

of reality check how we're

20:23

how we're thinking about it. And also

20:25

when people, you know, especially children,

20:27

you know, their struggles or so

20:29

common. Teenagers are all struggling with

20:31

the same identity concerns

20:34

and, you know, trying to develop

20:36

friendships and and sort of

20:38

trying to move into the next stage of life,

20:40

which is, of course, so difficult.

20:42

And those struggles

20:44

are universal. And and once

20:46

we understand that, it makes it it makes

20:48

so much easier to grapple with. And that's

20:51

before we get useful advice and guidance

20:53

and and all that from other people. Just

20:55

understanding that what we're experiencing

20:58

we're not alone. You know, as isolating as it

21:00

can feel to have a secret, we're not alone

21:02

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21:04

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21:05

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22:35

today. And

22:42

that brings

22:42

me to at least in

22:45

my upbringing the biggest

22:48

common way in which people divels

22:51

their

22:51

secrets, which was in the confessional.

22:53

And you're, like, in some ways,

22:55

like, after reading your book, I'm, like, wondering whether the

22:57

Catholic church had had their

22:59

finger on the pulse here. Tell us a

23:02

little bit about, you know, the

23:04

role of confessions and,

23:07

like, whether there

23:09

is a kind of modern confessional

23:11

today that that maybe doesn't have, you

23:13

know, some of the same other requirements

23:16

as say, like, a particular religious

23:19

experience. Yeah.

23:19

So the idea of confession and the

23:22

religious sense that you find fascinating

23:24

as someone who's never have

23:26

that specific experience myself. I would

23:28

love to somehow one day get

23:31

closer to it and and study it in some

23:33

way. What

23:35

you know, that sense of confession actually is

23:37

what I would call confiding. So

23:39

when I use the word confession, I use it to

23:41

mean revealing your

23:43

secret to the person you're keeping it from.

23:45

And then I say confining is revealing a

23:47

secret to a third party. And

23:49

so confession, revealing a secret to the

23:51

person you're keeping it from. Sometimes that's

23:54

the right thing to do. Sometimes it can

23:56

make things a whole lot worse. And

23:58

so it's really risky. You know, I

24:00

think the sort of classic example here

24:02

is if you've cheated on your partner, even

24:04

if it was let's say it was a one time thing,

24:07

was a long time ago, you know, should

24:09

you tell them? And it's

24:11

a really complicated question and a lot

24:13

goes into how to navigate

24:16

that question. one really useful

24:18

thing to do when you're trying to decide whether or

24:20

not to confess a secret to someone that

24:22

you're keeping it from. is hold

24:24

off on making that decision and

24:26

talk about the secret with a third party. Because

24:28

by talking about a secret with a third party,

24:31

you avoid all of the risks of confession.

24:33

You know, you're specifically choosing someone who's not gonna

24:35

reveal the secret back to the person you're keeping

24:38

it from. and so you can get their emotional support

24:40

and advice and guidance and

24:43

validation and just a conversation can

24:45

just make it's so much easier

24:47

just to to talk about this thing with other

24:49

people without the risks that

24:50

could come from revealing the secret to

24:52

the person you're keeping it from. It's a

24:55

really confiding If you choose the right

24:57

person, it's a really, really

24:59

good bet. And it turns out

25:01

that most experiences of confiding people

25:03

are, say, are really helpful. people

25:05

say even a really lukewarm response, even

25:07

a sort of only mildly helpful response

25:09

makes them feel really good. It

25:11

makes them feel a lot better. We don't need

25:14

a lot. and other people have a lot to give. So I

25:16

wanted to ask a

25:16

little bit like a follow-up of the kind of,

25:18

you know, maybe why secrets

25:22

that make us anxious or, you know,

25:24

have these feelings might persist and,

25:26

you know, or maybe speculate a little

25:28

bit about evolutionary reasons. But when

25:30

I think about like, okay, in this case, let's use the

25:33

term confiding to a

25:35

priest say about all your moral

25:37

transgressions. I

25:39

mean, I certainly remember when I was a kid and

25:42

or a teenager and I, you know, we

25:44

went to confession every Sunday.

25:47

and it just felt like, okay, I

25:50

unburdened

25:50

myself of all the bad things I

25:52

did this week, and so I feel great

25:54

starting with a fresh slate and

25:56

like, boy, that was easy. So next

25:58

time I put into it, you know,

26:00

maybe this is just a teenage brain minus

26:02

a prefrontal cortex but it made it feel as if

26:04

it was like okay for me to do these

26:07

moral transgressions because I could just go back

26:09

into that little room

26:11

tell someone I can't see about it, you know,

26:13

say a couple of hair hale marries and

26:15

put it behind me. So Yeah.

26:17

I think that's a fascinating idea

26:20

of that. that someone should study because I think that

26:22

makes a lot of sense this idea that it could

26:24

potentially license you to, you

26:26

know, commit this misdeeds

26:28

again. I

26:31

don't know of any research that shows that

26:33

in the space of secrecy, we could totally predict that

26:35

from other things there. Yeah. I

26:37

mean, you know, maybe that just speaks speaks more to

26:39

my moral turbo tune

26:41

rather than anything else. But but

26:43

I wonder if you thought about, like, sort

26:46

of, know, what is

26:48

there? Do you see a kind of advantage

26:51

to the pain that secret

26:53

keeping makes us

26:55

feel that that might

26:57

lead to or might explain

26:58

sort of why it persists and why it seems to

27:01

be so common. I

27:02

think certainly, you know, when we feel

27:05

guilty about a secret, when

27:06

we feel like we've done something wrong.

27:10

I think that's usually useful feeling.

27:12

It can be frustrating when you

27:14

can't undo it, when

27:16

you can't change this past

27:19

mistake. but that's

27:21

when you're focusing on the past. And when you're

27:23

focusing on the past, you're

27:25

not gonna get very far in terms of improved

27:27

coping. But when we think about how bad we feel

27:29

about this mistake we've made in the past,

27:31

but think about that from

27:33

the lens of present in the

27:35

future and how you don't have to make that

27:37

mistake again, you can learn from your lessons or

27:39

sort of make up for bad behavior.

27:42

when we think about sort of the lessons we can draw and what

27:44

we can do differently, then we're in a good

27:46

place. And so I do think there's a place

27:48

for feeling bad in the right

27:51

way to motivate us to do

27:53

differently next time, to do better. So let's

27:55

talk a little bit about

27:55

the coping strategies

27:56

that you lay out in the book. And

27:58

and I wonder if I

27:59

could, like, also just kind of

28:02

preface this next bit of the conversation

28:04

with saying that, like, you know, I think

28:06

sometimes we talk ourselves into

28:08

the fact that the bad behavior was

28:10

necessary seri order to gain us a particular

28:12

insight. So we kind of like say, well,

28:14

you know, you know, if I

28:16

did x

28:17

that indicates that there's a problem. And now I'm

28:19

gonna fix the problem. So, you

28:22

know, it's I'm better off having

28:24

done the the bad deed rather

28:26

than I don't know. Like so yeah. So

28:28

with that in mind, tell us about the coping strategies,

28:30

and is that kind of the sort of

28:32

dark side of it?

28:34

No. I think you're right that,

28:37

you know, part of life is making

28:39

mistakes and and learning from them and

28:41

someone who never made the mistakes that we

28:43

all make. you know, maybe they're they're missing something. There's learning

28:45

experiences that we grow from and

28:47

sort of decide we'll do

28:49

better from and and and sort

28:51

of improve ourself from. And

28:53

so the the three coping

28:55

strategies that I cover in the

28:57

book align with this three dimensions of secrets

28:59

we were talking about. And the first one

29:01

is the one I was just mentioning. This

29:03

idea that even

29:05

when our past behavior, we consider

29:07

it to be morally wrong.

29:09

That doesn't mean you have to feel ashamed

29:11

today and for forever.

29:14

Instead, you can think about it as

29:17

learning, you know, as a lesson to learn from,

29:20

as as a point

29:22

to do better from. You know, we can

29:24

recognize that our past mistakes can

29:27

really feel uncomfortable today because we

29:29

feel like we've improved as a

29:31

person. And so instead of feeling

29:33

really bad about yourself, from about

29:35

what you the you could say, okay, like, I'm not

29:38

gonna do that again. I've I've learned from that

29:40

lesson, and so your past mistakes don't have to

29:42

reflect on who you are today. they

29:45

can be this thing that you

29:47

use as a jumping point

29:49

to to doing better. And

29:51

so Even when you feel like you're doesn't make morally

29:53

wrong, it's not you're not doomed. You can you can

29:55

sort of use this in this way with you sort of

29:57

orient your mind toward this future and

29:59

away from

29:59

the past. And so

30:00

that's that first dimension. The

30:03

morality of the secret and and feeling that what you've

30:05

done is wrong. The second

30:07

dimension you know, often secrets

30:10

might involve another person and

30:12

we might forget that that's a huge

30:14

resource, you know, maybe you

30:17

can talk to that person about the secret

30:19

even if it's uncomfortable. You

30:21

know, I've learned from my own life that even

30:23

when secrets come out, still

30:25

aren't really good about talking about them.

30:27

And so recognizing the

30:29

people around you that can help

30:31

you certainly will make a big difference,

30:34

And, you know, maybe you're keeping a secret

30:36

to protect another person.

30:38

And that also can really

30:40

help in this domain, recognizing, okay,

30:43

this is not easy, but I'm doing this for

30:45

the right reasons. I'm projecting this other

30:47

person. I'm projecting their feelings or I'm

30:49

projecting their relationship. or,

30:51

you know, your relationship with

30:53

them. And so, you know, one is thinking

30:55

about how your past mistakes don't reflect on who you are

30:57

today and sort of using your misdeeds

30:59

of the past to sort of orient yourself

31:01

to what you wanna do differently in the future. The

31:03

other is thinking about the way in which the secret

31:05

might be helping other people around And

31:08

then the third one is about your reasons, and

31:10

this gets back to the sort of secrets that involve

31:12

our goals and aspirations. And so even

31:14

if a secret feels really emotionally late

31:17

in. You can think, well, you know, I have my

31:19

reasons for keeping it. And, you know, that

31:21

doesn't necessarily and the

31:23

load entirely it helps. Howard

31:25

Bauchner: Yeah, and

31:25

I wanted to talk to you about, like, sort

31:27

of, how this issue of that first

31:30

dimension of the the moral question maps

31:32

on to sort of, like, Kohlberg stages

31:34

of moral development where,

31:36

you know,

31:36

initially, like, let's take

31:39

sexual infidelity as

31:41

an example you know, it it

31:43

can seem like, well, the right thing

31:45

to do is to like, let's say

31:47

you know

31:47

that someone else has been unfaithful

31:49

to their partner. like, the right thing to do is to, like, tell

31:51

the partner because that's sort of,

31:53

like, morally black and white and they have a right

31:55

to know. But if you think a little bit

31:57

more carefully about that, some

32:00

ways, it's not gonna

32:02

benefit the partner who, you know,

32:04

potentially could be dealing with a lot of hurt if they

32:06

find out. And so maybe then the

32:08

moral thing to do is

32:10

to not reveal. And then, like, there's all

32:12

these layers that can that you can pop

32:14

on to it. and you

32:16

even describe how, like, in some

32:18

cultures, sexual infidelity

32:20

is not

32:20

considered necessarily a

32:23

really big deal. So you, you know,

32:25

you show these numbers of, like, well, maybe some

32:27

some eighty

32:27

three percent of people in the US might

32:29

say, yes, it's, you know, morally wrong.

32:31

But if you and

32:34

this is from your book. I'm not just being stereotypical,

32:36

you know, talk to the French or

32:38

the Spanish, like that number is a lot

32:41

lower. So Yeah. So I wonder if

32:43

you could talk a little bit about sort of, like, moral

32:45

development, these stages, and how

32:47

that maps onto the

32:50

decisions we make

32:51

around our secrets. Howard Bauchner:

32:52

Yeah. So especially with the sexual and

32:55

family example, it's just

32:57

it's such an evocative example because you can say

32:59

easily talk yourself and to either

33:01

answer as being the right one. And

33:03

so in thinking through that,

33:05

conundrum, which is

33:08

unfortunately a common one.

33:10

It

33:10

the you know, I

33:11

think the first question is, well, why am I

33:13

keeping this a secret? and maybe it's what we were just talking about. It's because

33:15

you're trying to protect this other person. But

33:18

of course, you're also trying to protect

33:20

yourself too. And so

33:23

you know, if the reason that you decide, okay,

33:26

maybe I should reveal the secret. You know, one thing you

33:28

could say is it's the morally right thing to

33:30

do. Another reason you might wanna

33:32

reveal the secret is you just are tired

33:34

of being alone with it. You're just tired

33:36

of having to live with the guilt

33:38

of keeping this huge thing

33:40

from your partner. And

33:43

so if that's the

33:45

reason you wanna do

33:47

this to relieve your own guilt,

33:49

that's, I think, the moment to pause and think

33:51

about, okay, revealing the speaker can make you

33:53

feel a whole lot better about what effect is it

33:55

gonna have on the other person? And

33:57

so I think, you know, I think these things certainly

33:59

matter and degree. I

33:59

think everyone would agree

34:02

that serial cheating

34:04

is is morally wrong and

34:06

probably not the kind of thing that is okay to keep

34:08

to keep secret

34:10

secret. a one time in discretion,

34:12

I think most people would agree that's

34:14

less morally wrong than sort

34:16

of a repeat offender and especially

34:18

when we're talking about a one time indiscretion, you know,

34:21

you could think maybe you're

34:23

better off not rebelling

34:25

this to this to your

34:27

person if this is never gonna happen again. And so the

34:30

final wrinkle in in this

34:32

really complicated

34:34

conundrum and enter him

34:36

is trying to understand partner Because some people,

34:39

even if it would hurt them,

34:41

and even if it would damage

34:44

the relationship. Maybe irreparably, there are people out

34:46

there who say, this is something I would want

34:48

my partner to tell me. And there are other

34:50

people who out there who in the

34:52

realm of, you know, this total, you know,

34:54

lots of judgment and discretion will never happen

34:56

again. There are other people who say, I

34:59

wouldn't wanna know about this. I

35:01

asked people to respond to this very question.

35:04

Imagine your partner. She'd

35:06

on you. If this has

35:08

happened one time, it's never gonna happen

35:10

again, it was total absolute judgment, would you want to

35:12

know? And seventy seven

35:14

percent of people said yes.

35:18

I thought that number was gonna be lower. Mhmm. But

35:20

either way, it goes to show some

35:22

people would wanna know and and some

35:24

people wouldn't wanna know. And and

35:28

that's that's what's

35:28

really hard to figure out on your own, and that's why you

35:30

might wanna talk to other people to get a sense of

35:32

it. But, yeah, it becomes so complicated,

35:34

so quickly, and what's the more

35:38

moral decision in this morally

35:40

complicated

35:40

scenario. You know, and maybe

35:42

a portion of those seventy seven are are

35:44

wrong that actually they would be worth

35:47

didn't know. And they're just not Yeah. A lot of people have that

35:49

intuition and and me too. It's like, should I run this

35:52

study again? And just after people say yes, I

35:54

should be like, are

35:56

you sure? Yeah. Yeah. Or or play

35:58

it so that, you know, like, ask a

35:59

follow-up question about, should

36:01

your friend no. Like,

36:04

you know, like put it on to somebody else as

36:06

opposed to it's not you, but like, you know, if your

36:08

friend was being, you know, cheated

36:10

on, like, should they know. Anyway, but I wanna let our

36:12

listeners know that Michael's book the

36:14

Secret Life of Secrets, how our

36:16

inner worlds shape

36:18

well-being relationships and who we are is available at

36:20

booksellers everywhere. We didn't get so much

36:22

into the who we are apart explicitly.

36:26

We're running a little bit short on

36:28

time. But I, you know, I wonder if you

36:30

could just tell us I've I've so two more

36:32

questions. I I there's one more that I wanna end on. So

36:34

tell us a little bit about

36:36

sort of what we can learn from how we hold

36:38

secrets about sort of our sense of

36:40

self. You know, it's weird.

36:41

There is part of what

36:43

we

36:43

might be trying to achieve with secrecy is

36:46

this idea of sort of compartmentalizing

36:48

and and presenting a particular

36:50

self to

36:52

other people. But and that's when I think it's useful to

36:54

recognize that we all have similar

36:56

secrets. And we're not alone in the

36:58

secrets we

37:00

keep. And

37:00

and the

37:01

number one way of connecting

37:04

with other people is

37:06

revealing information

37:08

about your self. You know, disclosure

37:10

and relationship strength go hand in hand,

37:12

either besides physical touch and

37:14

sharing experience with each other,

37:17

communicating with each other is the primary way we connect with

37:20

each other. And so choosing to hold back

37:22

is is holding back

37:24

from the the major way that

37:26

we connect with others and and learn about others. And

37:28

and when people reveal to us, we learn about

37:30

them. And, you know, when we reveal to

37:32

them, they learn

37:34

about us. But perhaps

37:36

most importantly, it's your question.

37:38

When we reveal ourselves to

37:40

other people, we learn

37:42

about ourselves because we see how

37:44

people react, you know, to what

37:46

we're telling them. You know, a lot of self

37:48

discovery comes from learning

37:50

how other people respond to us.

37:53

Yeah. We are

37:53

not cells in a vacuum, you know. We are

37:56

yeah. Yeah. And and so when we

37:58

sort of hold back certain things from other people,

37:59

we're we're really missing out on

38:02

this opportunity to learn about ourselves and and learn how to move forward if something

38:04

we're struggling with. Alright. So my

38:07

final question is

38:09

the can

38:10

people tell? Do they know when

38:12

you're holding a secret? Like, how good are we?

38:14

Is that is this something that, like, some people are

38:17

really good at? you know, telling whether someone has a

38:19

secret or some people really bad at hiding the

38:22

fact that they have a secret and, like,

38:24

what is is there a body

38:26

language? Are Like, what are the

38:28

tells? And and how

38:30

often do people know? Right.

38:32

So so the answer

38:33

to this question, can

38:35

people tell answer is yes and no. So let's start

38:37

with the no first.

38:40

People can have a sense of how

38:42

you're feeling and if you've had a

38:44

bad day and, you know, maybe if there's something you're not

38:47

saying, but they can't literally read your mind. And

38:50

that's useful. you can have thought and

38:52

not share it and people would never know that you

38:54

have the thought. When we look at

38:56

studies of lie detection, which,

38:58

importantly, it's important to keep in

39:00

mind that lying is just one

39:02

way to keep a secret. There are plenty of ways

39:04

to keep a secret that don't involve

39:06

lying. But when we look at studies of lying

39:08

detection between strangers, people can't do

39:10

it. And so if you've heard,

39:12

like, eye contact and looking to the

39:14

right and, you know, even

39:16

saying, like, none of those things

39:18

are valid, accused, to deception,

39:20

in a broad manner, where you could just look at

39:22

anyone on the street and

39:24

and know with certainty whether they're lying or not. And so when it comes to

39:26

strangers, the answer is you

39:28

can't you

39:30

can't tell. Some people are

39:32

better at sort of being perceptive to

39:34

to subtleties of non rolled behavior, but still

39:36

not enough to get around this idea of

39:38

people can't read

39:40

your thoughts. But think about your partner, you know,

39:42

someone who's known you for years. They

39:44

have a good sense of when something is

39:46

bothering you or they have a

39:48

good sense of, you know, when there's something on your

39:50

mind that you're not mentioning.

39:52

There's a story that I share in the book

39:54

of, it's a dramatic example,

39:56

but it's you know, the story is

39:58

someone who's cheating on their partner and, you

39:59

know, the way that they're handling

40:02

this, you know, they're not lying so much as

40:04

they're just totally

40:05

shutting themselves off from their partner.

40:07

And and this person thought that their partner had some

40:09

kind of, like,

40:10

medical medical change in

40:12

personality. They thought, you know, something really strange has

40:14

happened to this person. It turns out that when you

40:17

if to keep a secret, you just totally shut

40:19

yourself off from the other person. they're

40:21

gonna notice something is up. And

40:24

so no matter what, you know, with a

40:26

romantic relationship, with a friendship, with a

40:28

family relationship, even if you're keeping

40:30

a secret, you definitely wanna

40:32

stay open with your thoughts and feelings more generally

40:34

otherwise. They're gonna they're gonna notice

40:36

something is up for sure. Lots to

40:37

think about. But, you

40:40

know, I think as we go into

40:42

the holiday season, maybe this is the

40:44

time to unburden ourselves of some of the secrets that are eating away

40:46

at us. Learn more about

40:48

ourselves and come out into the

40:50

New Year feeling better

40:52

about everything. So Michael Slappy, and

40:54

thank you so much for being on inquiring

40:56

minds. Thanks for

40:57

having

40:58

me. So that's

41:00

it for

41:01

another episode. Thanks for

41:03

listening. If you wanna hear more, don't forget to subscribe.

41:06

If you'd like to get an ad free version of

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this show, consider supporting us at

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patreon dot com slash

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inquiring minds. I want to especially thank David Noelle, Chang,

41:14

John Johnson, Jordan Miller, Kaira

41:16

Rihala, Michael Galgul, Eric

41:18

Clark, Yuchy Lynn, Clark Lindgren,

41:22

Joel Stefan Meyer, Awald, Dale Master, and Charles

41:24

Blial. Inquiring Minds is produced by

41:26

Adam Isaac. I'm your host, Andreyvascontus.

41:30

See you

41:33

next time.

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