The Solitude of Secrecy: Thinking About Secrets Evokes Goal Conflict and Feelings of Fatigue

Past research has conceptualized secrecy as speech inhibition during social interaction. In contrast, the current research broadens the understanding of secrecy by conceptualizing it as the commitment to conceal information. Seven experiments demonstrate the implications of this broader conceptualization for understanding secrecy’s consequences. The results demonstrate that thinking about secrets—relative to thinking about personal information...