A new study authored by PBS graduate student Alisa Bedrov and PBS Professor and Chair Dr. Shelly Gable on the intrapersonal and interpersonal impact of secrecy was recently highlighted by Forbes. Their study, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, identified several key factors that determine the burden of a secret and the toll that keeping it might take on an individual, including daily personal impact, relationship impact, the pressure one feels to reveal their secret, as well as the anticipated consequences of revealing it. This exciting new work, conducted in Gable’s Emotions, Motivation, Behavior and Relationships Lab (The EMBeR lab), was the first to standardize a secrecy burden metric and to apply it to real-world secrets and well-being outcomes.

Congratulations, Alisa and Shelly!

See here for the Forbes coverage: https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2023/09/09/4-signs-a-secret-is-silently-preying-on-your-mental-health