The Benefits of Keeping Good News a Secret: A Psychological Analysis

Tuesday - November 14 2023, 12:13 UTC - 1 year ago

A study found that keeping good news a secret before telling someone else could make us more energized and alive. 500 pre-study survey suggested 76% tend to share good news as soon as they learn it, but the researchers found that more than 2,500 participants do not want to disclose their good news, feeling more energized. Four follow-up studies showed evidence that positive secrets make people feel energized for another reason different than it just being a source of positive emotion.

People who keep good news a secret – even for a short time – often feel energized, study says. Though people often want to share good news as soon as they learn it, a study published by the American Psychological Association has found that keeping good news a secret before telling someone else could make people feel more energized and alive. "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?" asked lead author Michael Slepian, PhD, an associate professor of business at Columbia University. "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 .

" The research was published today (November 13) in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. A pre-study survey of 500 people found that 76% said the first thing they would do upon learning good news is share it with someone. But there are many positive life events that people may choose to keep secret, such as a marriage proposal, a desired pregnancy, or splurging on a luxury purchase. Researchers conducted five experiments with more than 2,500 participants to understand what motivates people to keep positive secrets, and how keeping a positive secret may affect someone compared with a secret they keep because they consider it to be unpleasant or embarrassing .

In one experiment, participants were shown a list of nearly 40 common types of good news, which included items such as saving up money, buying a gift for oneself or reducing a debt. The participants then indicated which pieces of good news they currently had and which they had kept secret. Some participants 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 energized the news made them feel and whether they intended to share the news with someone else .

The researchers found that people held on average 14 to 15 pieces of good news, with an average of five to six that were kept secret. The participants who reflected on their positive secrets reported feeling more energized than the participants who thought about their good news that was not secret. People who reported that they intended to share their news with others also reported feeling more energized, whether the news was secret or not .

"Positive secrets that people choose to keep should make them feel good, and positive emotion is a known predictor of feeling energized," said Slepian. But the researchers found across four follow-up studies that positive secrets make people feel energized for another reason too. One of those experiments showed participants the list of common types of good news and asked them to select the piece of news that was most likely to happen to them in the near future .

One group of participants then imagined that they kept the good news secret until they felt the need to tell someone, while the other group imagined they told their news to someone else as soon as they learned the news. Across two experiments, participants in the first group reported feeling more energized than participants in the second group, suggesting that the “suspense of waiting” may also play a role in why people feel energized when they keep positive secrets .