About KeepingSecrets.org


The data presented on KeepingSecrets.org, collected by researchers at Columbia University, comes from a large survey of over 50,000 individuals across the U.S., people of all races, genders, and ages (18 and older).

KeepingSecrets.org is a project maintained by Professor Michael Slepian of Columbia University.


Michael Slepian is the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia University. A recipient of the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, he is the leading expert on the psychology of secrets. Slepian has authored more than fifty articles on secrecy, truth, and deception. His research has been covered by The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, NPR, and more.

Secrecy: Coverage in the news

"Unpacking The Secret Life of Secrets" The New York Times, June 2022.

"'The Secret Life of Secrets' Review: Monsters in our closet" The Wall Street Journal, June 2022.

"There's a secret to keeping secrets" The Wall Street Journal, February 2022.

"Exposing the hidden world of secrets" APA Monitor, September 2020.

"Trump backers who were afraid to tell their loved ones" (op-ed) CNN, May 2019.

"Why the secrets you keep are hurting you" Scientific American, February 2019.

"Should you keep a secret?" The Wall Street Journal, June 2018.

"The secret life of secrets" The New Yorker, May 2017.

"Why it's so hard to keep a secret" Scientific American, May 2017.

"The worst part of keeping a secret" The Atlantic, May 2017.

"Keeping secrets isn't so bad for you after all - with one exception" New York Magazine, May 2017.

"The price of secrecy" The Economist, April 2017.

"Your deepest secrets" (cover story) Psychology Today, March 2017.

"Spill the beans." The Atlantic, July 2015.

"Why you can't keep a secret." The Atlantic, March 2014.

 
The Book:

Avaialble now!
The Secret Life of Secrets

Secrecy: Additional Resources

"Shining a light on secrets" SPSP, September 2020.

"The burden of being alone with our secrets" SPSP, July 2020.

"The problem with keeping a secret" SPSP, July 2019.

"Why the secrets you keep are hurting you" Scientific American, February 2019.

copyright notice

Secrecy: Academic Publications

 

Slepian, M.L. (in press). A process model of having and keeping secrets. Psychological Review.

 

Salerno, J.M. & Slepian, M.L. (in press). Morality, punishment, and revealing other people's secrets. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

 

Liu, Z., Kalokerinos, E.K., & Slepian, M.L. (in press). Emotion appraisals and coping with secrets. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

 

Slepian, M.L. & Koch, A. (2021). Identifying the dimensions of secrets to reduce their harms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120, 1431-1456.

 

Slepian, M.L., Greenaway, K.H., & Masicampo, E.J. (2020). Thinking through secrets: Rethinking the role of thought suppression in secrecy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46, 1411-1427.

 

 

McDonald, R.I., Salerno, J.M., Greenaway, K.H., & Slepian, M.L. (2020). Motivated secrecy: Politics, relationships, and regrets. Motivation Science, 6, 61-78.

 

 

Slepian, M.L., Kirby, J.N., & Kalokerinos, E.K. (2020). Shame, guilt, and secrets on the mind. Emotion, 20, 323-328.

 

 

Slepian, M.L., Halevy, N., & Galinsky, A.D. (2019). The solitude of secrecy: Thinking about secrets evokes motivational conflict and feelings of fatigue. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45, 1129-1151.

 

 

Slepian, M.L. & Moulton-Tetlock, E. (2019). Confiding secrets and well-being. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10, 472-484.

 

 

Liu, Z. & Slepian, M.L. (2018). Secrecy: Unshared realities. Current Opinion in Psychology, 23, 124-128.

 

 

Slepian, M.L., & Greenaway, K.H. (2018). The benefits and burdens of keeping others' secrets. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 78, 220-232.

 

 

Slepian, M.L., & Kirby, J.N. (2018). To whom do we confide our secrets? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44, 1008-1023.

 

 

Slepian, M.L., & Bastian, B. (2017). Truth or punishment: Secrecy and punishing the self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 1596-1611.

 

 

Slepian, M.L., Chun, J.S., & Mason, M.F. (2017). The experience of secrecy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113, 1-33.

 

 

Slepian, M.L, Masicampo, E.J., & Galinsky, A.D. (2016). The hidden effects of recalling secrets: Assimilation, contrast, and the burdens of secrecy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 27-48.

 

 

Slepian, M.L., Camp, N.P., & Masicampo, E.J. (2015). Exploring the secrecy burden: Secrets, preoccupation, and perceptual judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144, e31-e42.

 

 

Slepian, M.L., Masicampo, E.J., & Ambady, N. (2014). Relieving the burdens of secrecy: Revealing secrets influences judgments of hill slant and distance. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5, 293-300.

 

 

Slepian, M.L., Masicampo, E.J., Toosi, N.R., & Ambady, N. (2012). The physical burdens of secrecy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141, 619-624.


For more information, visit www.gsb.columbia.edu/slepian

For any inquires, please contact Michael Slepian, email: michael.slepian@columbia.edu