What's the first thing you want to do when you have good news?
Tell your friends and family right away, or can't you wait to post a circle of friends?
It has always been accepted that people should share, communicate, and express. Anything to keep in your heart makes things worse.
We live in an era where you can share anytime, anywhere, and when you gently poke the send button on the screen, likes, comments, and timely feedback will continue to pour in. You'll be excited by a compliment, or you'll be depressed by a questioning look. "It turns out that the joys and sorrows of human beings are not the same. ”
Since the good news is so fragile, do we still have to share it?
The latest research published in the November issue of the November issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Michael Slepian, an associate professor and principal researcher at Columbia Business School, shows that if you share your good news too early, you will lose attention to yourself.
It's better to try not to open your mouth yet, let the joy flow in your heart for a little longer, and you may be happier.
Slepine's research team first surveyed 500 people, and when something good happened, 76% chose to share it with others.
The team then surveyed 2,800 people aged 18-78 and conducted five experiments. One of the experiments listed a series of good things that may be experienced in life: schooling, new job, promotion and raise, new relationship, paying off debts, saving money, giving gifts, receiving gifts, proposing, pregnancy, etc.
Participants ticked an average of 15 things. There were five or six things in it that they didn't tell anyone. These things include: receiving or giving a surprise gift, suddenly getting an opportunity, investing, planning a secret trip, etc.
The team then randomly asked some people to recall the experience of "sharing the joy" and others the experience of "choosing to be silent". The results showed that the "silencer" felt happier and more energetic than the "sharer".
Surprise is the most fleeting of emotions," Slepien said, "and letting people spend extra days, weeks, or even more imagining the surprise on someone's face gives us more time to enjoy the exciting moment, even if it's just in our own minds." ”
Secrecy is not an easy task, and it often triggers negative psychological mechanisms: nervousness, embarrassment, shame, fear, ......But why is it uplifting to keep a positive secret?
Keep the good news to yourself
In this study, the researchers also designed the following three scenarios:
Let's say you have good news, but you decide not to tell it until you get home from work and then tell your partner, how do you feel at this time?
Let's say you have good news, but you can't tell your partner right away because she's in a meeting all day and you have to wait until the other person comes home from work to say, how do you feel?
Suppose you have good news, but you haven't told your partner yet, how do you feel?
These three scenarios are divided into three types of secrecy conditions: the first is intrinsic condition, the second is extrinsic condition, and the third is baseline condition.
Next, participants fill out a questionnaire with some emotional indicators: how tired, how passive, how active, how energetic, how awake, how active, ......
The results show that people feel more excited and energized only when they actively choose secrecy (i.e., internal conditioning).
Another part of the Slepion's team's study was to ask participants to imagine that they had "a "feel-good secret," a "bad feeling secret," or "a simple secret." Those who have active secrets, have chosen to actively keep secrets. This is known in psychology as "autonomous motivation". It is the key to energy and happiness.
When the motivation is stimulated, the brain spends more time savoring it – just imagining the reaction of others to the good news will unconsciously raise the corners of the mouth.
It's not the same as the energy you get after a cup of coffee," says Slepin, "it's kind of like when you walk out of the house and smell the air at the door, it's a kind of refreshment and comfort from the inside out." ”
When people decide to share the excitement, they get feedback. "Because sharing happiness depends on the other person's reaction. If you joyfully share your good news, but the other person rationally analyzes the potential negative impact of the good news, the enthusiasm will naturally wane. ”
What kind of secret is worth keeping
In 2022, Dr. Slepion wrote a new book called The Secret Life of Secrets. He gave a lecture at Columbia University. After the speech, he glanced at his phone and found that there were two missed ** from his father.
* Over there, his father was about to tell him a secret, a secret that his mother, grandparents, aunts, and uncles had kept for almost his entire life—his origins.
Decades ago, an anonymous sperm donor gave him life through artificial insemination.
In his book, Slepion writes: "I learned this near the end of the most important day of my career. As an authoritative expert on secret psychology, he couldn't understand what his family's psychological motivation was for keeping it a secret from him for so long.
Slepion has always been committed to the study of occultity.
In 2012, he asked participants to recall a big secret like "infidelity" or a small secret like a "white lie." After that, he asked the participants to look at the ** of a hill and found that the former saw a steeper slope.
It turns out that keeping a secret can feel so heavy that it can change one's perception of the environment.
Those secrets crush them while pumping the **s***s. Slepion said.
Five years later, Slepyon's team conducted another study. They conducted a questionnaire with 1,500 participants that covered 38 common secrets, including lying, self-harm and infidelity. Only thirty of them said they had never had such experiences.
The researchers then asked how many times in a month they thought about the secrets and how many times they had to actively hide them. The results show that people think about secrets far more when they are alone than on other occasions. "The more one's mind wanders over one's own secrets, the harder it is to get emotional support. When we face important things alone, especially things that are harmful or annoying, we often don't form the healthiest way to think. ”
The study of the psychology of secrecy has focused mainly on negative secrets, and people are dragged down by those embarrassing, shameful secrets.
When the other person allows himself to keep it a secret, he will face an inner struggle. Those who are under moral constraints may cause mental problems such as depression and anxiety, such as the desire to stop talking, rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, insomnia and dreams. "It's a tremendous mental strain that involves constant monitoring of a person's words and behavior. ”
This time, the Slepian team focused on the "Positive Secret". The positive stimuli it evokes, such as a sense of achievement, surprises, and rewards, will make people happier. Research has proven that people who keep positive secrets don't have negative secrets have more reasons to keep secrets.
With the popularity of social networking, people can share anytime, anywhere, at their fingertips. This propensity to share is one of the important rules that promote the quality and satisfaction of relationships.
The results of the Slepion team's research show that people like to focus deeply on information that is beneficial to them. For positive secrets, it is exciting in itself, independent of any intention to share. It's only about one's own heart, to say it or not to say it, it's a kind of freedom. This kind of freedom reduces the control of the outside world over oneself, and thus avoids mental harm.
"If you want to get out of the doldrums, you have to take advantage of the good things that we've been through, spend more time with them, think about them, reflect on them and enjoy them." ”
100 help plan