Shankar Vedantam

But it's also striking that many Jewish Holocaust survivors prefer not to discuss the horrors that they witnessed or that they experienced.

They don't talk to their friends and family about what happened.

I'm wondering what this tells you about the nature of secrets, Leslie.

Yeah.

When we come back, could keeping a secret ever be a good thing?

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedant.

Leslie John is a psychologist at Harvard University.

She studies the science of secrets and self-disclosure, how much we share of ourselves and the benefits and costs of doing so.

Her book is titled Revealing the Underrated Power of Oversharing.

So Leslie, we talked earlier about how families or even nations of people can carry collective secrets.

And often this happens not through explicit discussion, but via the more subtle norms of a group.

We heard from a listener named Philip.

He grew up in an evangelical Christian community and would spend upwards of 70 hours per week knocking on doors to proselytize.

But then one day when he was in his mid-20s, Philip realized he was actually an agnostic.

Now that was difficult enough, but on top of that, the group I was a part of maintained a very strict set of rules around apostasy, if someone broke with doctrine, and excommunication, if someone broke through rules.

four years and i wound up suffering all the side effects that leslie john alluded to psychologically physiologically socially you name it um but the desire for coming clean so to speak and having that sensation of it simply feels good just built up

It felt really good to be able to express myself honestly without judgment, but because this friend was around my age and female, it also constituted a breach of trust and the emotional commitment with my wife.