- Keeping secrets – at least for a little while – could actually brighten your day
- People keep positive secrets in particular for personal reasons, study finds
Whether it’s an engagement announcement, a new job or even a lottery win, we often want to share good news as soon as possible.
But keeping secrets – at least for a little while – could actually brighten your day, according to new research.
A team from Columbia University recruited more than 2,500 people to take part in their study, which involved a series of experiments.
In one, participants were shown a list of nearly 40 common types of good news, including items such as saving up money, buying a gift for themselves or reducing a debt.
They indicated which pieces of good news they currently had and which they had kept a secret.
Keeping secrets – at least for a little while – could actually brighten your day, according to new research (stock image)
Some were asked to reflect on the good news they kept secret, while others reflected on good news that was not secret, and then rated how energised the news made them feel and whether they intended to share the news with someone else.
The team discovered that people held on average 14 to 15 pieces of good news, but kept five or six secret.
The participants who reflected on their positive secrets reported feeling more energised than the participants who thought about their good news that was not secret.
Those who reported that they intended to share their news with others also said they felt more energised.
In another experiment, participants were asked to select a piece of news that was most likely to happen to them in the near future.
One group were told to imagine that they kept their good news secret until they told their partner later in the day, while the rest imagined that they were currently unable to reach their partner and so were not able to tell them until later in the day.
Whether it’s an engagement announcement, a new job or even a lottery win, we often want to share good news as soon as possible (stock image)
The people who imagined a ‘want’ to hold the information back to make the revelation surprising were more energised than when they were unable to reveal the information due to other factors.
Lead author Michael Slepian said: ‘Decades of research on secrecy suggest it is bad for our well-being, but this work has only examined keeping secrets that have negative implications for our lives.
‘Is secrecy inherently bad for our well-being or do the negative effects of secrecy tend to stem from keeping negative secrets?
‘While negative secrets are far more common than positive secrets, some of life’s most joyful occasions begin as secrets, including secret marriage proposals, pregnancies, surprise gifts and exciting news.’
Analysis of another experiment found that people keep positive secrets in particular for personal reasons, rather than because they felt forced by outside pressures to keep the information hidden.
And in contrast to negative or embarrassing secrets, positive secrets made people feel more ‘alive’ when they chose to keep the information to themselves.
‘People will often keep positive secrets for their own enjoyment, or to make a surprise more exciting,’ Mr Slepian said.
‘Rather than based in external pressures, positive secrets are more often chosen due to personal desires and internal motives.
‘When we feel that our actions arise from our own desires rather than external pressures, we also feel ready to take on whatever lies ahead.
‘People sometimes go to great lengths to orchestrate revealing a positive secret to make it all the more exciting.
‘This kind of surprise can be intensely enjoyable, but surprise is the most fleeting of our emotions.
‘Having extra time – days, weeks or even longer – to imagine the joyful surprise on another person’s face allows us more time with this exciting moment, even if only in our own minds.’
The findings were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
