Having secrets on the mind is associated with lower well-being, and a common view of secrets is that people work to suppress and avoid them—but might people actually want to think about their secrets? Four studies examining more than 11,000 real-world secrets found that the answer depends on the importance of the secret: People generally seek to engage with thoughts of significant secrets and seek to suppress thoughts of trivial secrets. Inconsistent with an ironic process account, adopting the strategy to suppress thoughts of a secret was not related to a tendency to think about the secret. Instead, adopting the strategy to engage with thoughts of a secret was related the tendency to think about the secret. Moreover, the temporal focus of one’s thoughts moderated the relationship between mind-wandering to the secret and well-being, with a focus on the past exacerbating a harmful link. These results suggest that people do not universally seek to suppress their secrets; they also seek to engage with them, although not always effectively.
AikenL. S.WestS. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. SAGE.
2.
AndersonM. C.OchsnerK. N.KuhlB.CooperJ.RobertsonE.GabrieliS. W.GloverG. H.GabrieliJ. D. (2004). Neural systems underlying the suppression of unwanted memories. Science, 303, 232–235.
3.
BairdB.SmallwoodJ.SchoolerJ. W. (2011). Back to the future: Autobiographical planning and the functionality of mind-wandering. Consciousness and Cognition, 20, 1604–1611.
4.
BeharE.VescioT. K.BorkovecT. D. (2005). The effects of suppressing thoughts and images about worrisome stimuli. Behavior Therapy, 36, 289–298.
5.
BonannoG. A. (2013). Meaning making, adversity, and regulatory flexibility. Memory, 21(1), 150–156.
6.
BonannoG. A.WortmanC. B.NesseR. M. (2004). Prospective patterns of resilience and maladjustment during widowhood. Psychology and Aging, 19, 260–271.
7.
BrownK. W.RyanR. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 822–848.
8.
BrownK. W.RyanR. M.CreswellJ. D. (2007). Mindfulness: Theoretical foundations and evidence for its salutary effects. Psychological Inquiry, 18, 211–237.
9.
CritcherC. R.FergusonM. J. (2014). The cost of keeping it hidden: Decomposing concealment reveals what makes it depleting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 721–735.
DienerE.LucasR. E.OishiS. (2018). Advances and open questions in the science of subjective well-being. Collabra. Psychology, 4(1), 15.
12.
GreenbergM. A.WortmanC. B.StoneA. A. (1996). Emotional expression and physical health: Revising traumatic memories or fostering self-regulation?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(3), 588–602.
13.
HuX.BergströmZ. M.GagnepainP.AndersonM. C. (2017). Suppressing unwanted memories reduces their unintended influences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26, 197–206.
14.
HubertM.VandervierenE. (2008). An adjusted boxplot for skewed distributions. Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, 52, 5186–5201.
15.
JaneckA. S.CalamariJ. E. (1999). Thought suppression in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 23, 497–509.
16.
JuddC. M.WestfallJ.KennyD. A. (2012). Treating stimuli as a random factor in social psychology: A new and comprehensive solution to a pervasive but largely ignored problem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 54–69.
17.
KaneM. J.BrownL. H.McVayJ. C.SilviaP. J.Myin-GermeysI.KwapilT. R. (2007). For whom the mind wanders, and when: An experience-sampling study of working memory and executive control in daily life. Psychological Science, 18, 614–621.
18.
KellyA. E.KahnJ. H. (1994). Effects of suppression of personal intrusive thoughts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 998–1006.
19.
KellyA. E.YipJ. J. (2006). Is keeping a secret or being a secretive person linked to psychological symptoms?Journal of Personality, 74, 1349–1370.
20.
KillingsworthM. A.GilbertD. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 330(6006), 932.
21.
KingsepP.PageA. (2010). Attempted suppression of social threat thoughts: Differential effects for social phobia and healthy controls?Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48, 653–660.
22.
KlingerE. (1987). Current concerns and disengagement from incentives. In HalischF.KuhlJ. (Eds.), Motivation, intention, and volition (pp. 337–347). Springer.
23.
KlingerE. (2013). Goal commitments and the content of thoughts and dreams: Basic principles. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 415.
24.
KuznetsovaA.ChristensenR. H.BavayC.BrockhoffP. B. (2015). Automated mixed ANOVA modeling of sensory and consumer data. Food Quality and Preference, 40, 31–38.
25.
LaneJ. D.WegnerD. M. (1995). The cognitive consequences of secrecy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 237–253.
26.
LarsonD. G.ChastainR. L.HoytW. T.AyzenbergR. (2015). Self-concealment: Integrative review and working model. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 34, 705–729.
27.
LeporeS. J.KernanW. D. (2009). Positive life change and the social context of illness: An expanded social-cognitive processing model. In ParkC. L.LechnerS. C.AntoniM. H.StantonA. L. (Eds.), Medical illness and positive life change: Can crisis lead to personal transformation? (pp. 139–152). American Psychological Association.
28.
LiuZ.SlepianM. L. (2018). Secrecy: Unshared realities. Current Opinion in Psychology, 23, 124–128.
29.
LucianoJ. V.GonzálezS. A. (2007). Analysis of the efficacy of different thought suppression strategies. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 7(3), 335–345.
30.
MaasJ.WismeijerA. A. J.Van AssenM. A. L. M. (2019). Associations between secret-keeping and quality of life in older adults. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 88, 250–265.
31.
MaasJ.WismeijerA. A. J.Van AssenM. A. L. M.AquariusA. E. A. M. (2011). Is it bad to have secrets? Cognitive preoccupation as a toxic element of secrecy. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 12, 23–37.
32.
MathewsA.MilroyR. (1994). Effects of priming and suppression of worry. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 32, 843–850.
33.
McDonaldR. I.SalernoJ. M.GreenawayK. H.SlepianM. L. (2019). Motivated secrecy: Politics, relationships, and regrets. Motivation Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/mot0000139
34.
ParkC. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: An integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 257–301.
35.
PennebakerJ. W.BeallS. K. (1986). Confronting a traumatic event: Toward an understanding of inhibition and disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95(3), 274–281.
36.
PennebakerJ. W.ChungC. K. (2007). Expressive writing, emotional upheavals, and health. In FriedmanH. S.SilverR. C. (Eds.), Foundations of health psychology (pp. 263–284). Oxford University Press.
37.
PetrieK. J.BoothR. J.PennebakerJ. W.DavisonK. P.ThomasM. G. (1995). Disclosure of trauma and immune response to a hepatitis B vaccination program. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63(5), 787–792.
38.
PurdonC.ClarkD. A. (2001). Suppression of obsession-like thoughts in nonclinical individuals: Impact on thought frequency, appraisal and mood state. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 39, 1163–1181.
39.
RoemerL.BorkovecT. D. (1994). Effects of suppressing thoughts about emotional material. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 467–474.
40.
RubyF. J. M.SmallwoodJ.EngenH.SingerT. (2013). How self-generated thought shapes mood—The relation between mind-wandering and mood depends on the socio-temporal content of thoughts. PLOS ONE, 8, e77554.
41.
RubyF. J. M.SmallwoodJ.SackurJ.SingerT. (2013). Is self-generated thought a means of social problem solving?Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 962.
42.
SegerstromS. C.StantonA. L.AldenL. E.ShortridgeB. E. (2003). A multidimensional structure for repetitive thought: What’s on your mind, and how, and how much?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 909–921.
43.
SeliP.KaneM. J.SmallwoodJ.SchacterD. L.MailletD.SchoolerJ. W.SmilekD. (2018). Mind-wandering as a natural kind: A family-resemblances view. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22, 479–490. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.03.01
44.
SlepianM. L.ChunJ. S.MasonM. F. (2017). The experience of secrecy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113, 1–33.
45.
SlepianM. L.HalevyN.GalinskyA. D. (2019). The solitude of secrecy: Thinking about secrets evokes goal conflict and feelings of fatigue. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45, 1129–1151.
SlepianM. L.Moulton-TetlockE. (2019). Confiding secrets and well-being. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10, 472–484.
48.
SlepianM. L.OikawaM.SmythJ. M. (2014). Suppressing thoughts of evaluation while being evaluated. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44, 31–39.
49.
SmallwoodJ.O’ConnorR. C. (2011). Imprisoned by the past: Unhappy moods lead to a retrospective bias to mind wandering. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 1481–1490.
50.
SmallwoodJ.SchoolerJ. W.TurkD. J.CunninghamS. J.BurnsP.MacraeC. N. (2011). Self-reflection and the temporal focus of the wandering mind. Consciousness and Cognition, 20, 1120–1126.
51.
SmythJ. M. (1998). Written emotional expression: Effect sizes, outcome types, and moderating variables. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66, 174–184.
52.
SmythJ. M.TrueN.SoutoJ. (2001). Effects of writing about traumatic experiences: The necessity for narrative structuring. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 20, 161–172.
53.
SpillerS. A.FitzsimonsG. J.LynchJ. G.Jr.McClellandG. H. (2013). Spotlights, floodlights, and the magic number zero: Simple effects tests in moderated regression. Journal of Marketing Research, 50, 277–288.
54.
WatkinsE. R. (2008). Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 163–206.
55.
WegnerD. M. (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychological Review, 101(1), 34–52.
56.
WegnerD. M.LaneJ. D. (1995). From secrecy to psychopathology. In PennebakerJ. W. (Ed.), Emotion, disclosure, & health (pp. 25–46). American Psychological Association.
57.
WegnerD. M.SchneiderD. J.CarterS. R.WhiteT. L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 5–13.
58.
WenzlaffR. M.WegnerD. M. (2000). Thought suppression. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 59–91.
59.
ZhouH.FishbachA. (2016). The pitfall of experimenting on the web: How unattended selective attrition leads to surprising (yet false) research conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111, 493–504.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
