This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

You're sitting in a school bus next to your best friend.

She tells you about the time she stole an eraser from the teacher's desk.

You wonder whether you should tell her about the time you stole a plush toy from a store.

As the bus rolls along, you go back and forth in your mind and then decide against it.

A few years later, you're at your high school prom.

At the end of the evening, you share a kiss with your prom date, who turns out to

have bad breath.

This is not someone you are interested in long term.

Do you share the information or withhold it?

Or consider a much more serious situation later in life.

You're in a long-term relationship and you realize that for some years now, you have been questioning your own sexual orientation.

Your partner would be crushed to hear about it. Things are generally going well in your

relationship and you don't have immediate plans to act on your secret feelings. Is it best to keep

them to yourself? At every stage of life, we find ourselves confronted with dilemmas like this.

There is a part of us that wants to share, to have the world see us as we truly are,

and there is a part of us that sees how people are brought down by scandal and gossip.

And a cautious voice inside us says,

Be smart. Keep your mouth shut.

In today's show and our episode next week,

and also in a special episode of Hidden Brain Plus,

we explore the psychological costs and benefits of self-concealment

...