This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Growing up, I attended a Jesuit high school.

I noticed that every weekend, my Catholic classmates and their families would line up and confess their sins to a priest.

Some of those priests were also our teachers. They taught us history and geography and economics.

I found myself wondering why in the world my classmates would fess up about the best They taught us history and geography and economics.

I found myself wondering why in the world my classmates would fess up about the bad things they had done to the very teachers who held us to such strict account in the classroom.

Nearly every religious and spiritual tradition has some version of the Catholic confessional.

Everyone keeps secrets, but nearly everyone wants to share their secrets too.

Turns out, we don't just want to be admired and loved. We also want to be seen.

In our episode last week, we explored the costs of self-concealment. People who keep secrets have poorer physical and mental health. They are less likely to elicit help from others.

If you miss that episode, you can find it in this podcast

feed. It's titled Keeping Secrets. Today, we look at the psychological power of self-disclosure.

Sharing more about what is happening in our lives with others turns out to be one of the best

ways of winning friends and influencing people.

Coming clean, this week, on Hidden Brain.

Thank you. We all keep secrets, and most of us know what it feels like to share a secret. It feels scary.

It feels risky.

It can also feel liberating, honest, courageous.

At Harvard University, psychologist Leslie John studies the psychology of secret keeping

and the consequences of self-disclosure.

Leslie, John, welcome to Hidden Brain.

Thanks so much for having me.

Leslie, when you were a doctoral student, you once found yourself at an academic conference

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