There are about 13,000 secrets that are usually kept by people from other people that they know.
Michael Slepian co – authored the study published in Journal of Personality and Social Pscyhology. The information that he contributed came from the study that he did in 2012.
According to his study, people who are keeping secrets from other people have the tendency to find various tasks as harder as compared to people who do not keep as much secrets.
Their level of perception has changed because of the secrets that they are keeping and this may be meant to stay this way until the secret is revealed.
What Are These Secrets We Keep?
In the study, there were a thousand participants who stated the secrets that they were keeping from other people. The researcher is in charge of reviewing what the secrets are about. All in all, there were 38 categories that were formed.
The categories are considered to be broad though. For example, stealing money from a company and shoplifting from a store are considered to be part of the category ‘theft.’
Here are the 34 categories that were listed. Take note that these categories were shown along with the questionnaire:
- Drug Use
- Theft
- Self Harm
- Trauma
- Violate Trust
- Romantic Discontent
- Emotional Infidelity
- Being a Third Party in Relationship
- Work Cheating
- Planning Marriage Proposal
- Hobby
- Family Detail
- Sexual Orientation
- Not Having Sex
- Belief
- Employment
- Unusual Behavior
- Ambition
- Finances
- Preference
- Sexual Behavior
- Pregnant
- Hidden Relationship
- Surprise
- Poor Work Performance
- Disliking A Friend
- Sexual Infidelity
- Extra – Rational Thoughts
- Romantic Desire
- Lie
- Abortion
- Doing Something Illegal
- Addiction
- Harmed Another Person
There are some personal secrets that cannot fit in to any of the categories that are mentioned above.
13 of the Most Common Secrets
The different categories were given to new participants.
A lot of people in this world are keeping at least one secret from the list that will be mentioned below.
The study shows that at least five secrets are not given to any other person.
These are the most common secrets:
- 60% – A lie or negative financial status
- 47 % – Trust issues
- 33 % – Theft, feeling unhappy at work, hidden relationship
What Happens When We Keep Secrets?
It has been shown that even though there is no chance that the secret will be discovered, they will still haunt us.
There are a lot of people who dwell on these secrets when they are alone. They might want to conceal the secrets from other people but when they are on their own, they remember each and every secret that they have.
