The Secret Life of Secrets

Hidden Brain

Hidden Brain Media

Arts, Science, Performing Arts, Social Sciences

4.6 • 40.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2021

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s human nature to hide parts of ourselves that produce shame or anxiety. We tend to skip over details that could change how others perceive us. But no matter how big or small our secret, it will often weigh on our minds, and not for the reasons you might expect. This week on Hidden Brain, we talk with psychologist Michael Slepian about the costs of secret keeping.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta.
0:02.8	When you're the parent of a small child,
0:05.0	it's not uncommon to have an experience like this.
0:08.4	Your kid comes home from preschool and says,
0:11.9	the butterfly flew away.
0:14.1	You go, what butterfly?
0:17.0	And your child looks at you puzzled.
0:19.6	She doesn't realize that the butterfly she saw at preschool,
0:23.2	when you were not around, is not a butterfly you know anything about.
0:32.0	In the minds of very small children,
0:34.3	there is no sharp line between what they know
0:37.2	and what others know.
0:39.6	But at some point early in childhood,
0:42.0	all of us made a magical discovery.
0:44.8	Our thoughts belong only to us.
0:48.3	Parents, siblings, teachers,
0:50.8	no one can enter our minds and see what we are thinking.
0:55.8	A second discovery follows shortly afterward.
0:59.1	If no one can see what is happening inside our minds,
1:02.8	we can hide things from other people.
1:05.6	We can keep secrets.
1:13.9	So the pain of keeping this secret has been one of the biggest challenges
	...

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