A forthcoming study from the McCombs School of Business identifies the reasons humans keep secrets and neglect to tell the truth.  

The study was co-authored by Amit Kumar, assistant professor of marketing and philosophy at UT. Kumar worked alongside Michael Kardas, assistant professor of management at Oklahoma State University, and Nicholas Epley, professor of behavioral sciences at the University of Chicago. 

“Secrecy can carry a physiological burden,” Kumar said. “It turns out that when you conceal negative information from others, it can affect your well-being in a negative way.”

The three researchers carried out 12 experiments, including both imagined and live interactions between relationship types ranging from strangers to spouses. Kumar said throughout each experiment, the revealer of the secret in the experiment expected a harsher reaction from the secret’s recipient. 

“One of the things that’s useful from this research is we know – because we measured how recipients actually judged folks – people are judged less severely than they think,” Kumar said. “If you expect to be judged less severely, then you might actually be more likely to reveal rather than conceal information like this.”

James Pennebaker, a professor emeritus of psychology at UT, conducted similar research on natural language and social behavior. He said this kind of research highlights the intricacies of being human. 

“We all lie, we all tell the truth, we all want to give the impression that we’re happier than we really are, we all want to fit in,” Pennebaker said. “Very often being truly honest and authentic is at odds of being viewed in a positive light by others. In other words, we’re all living with these complexities every day.”

Pennebaker said he realized the extent of human secrecy when he came home for Christmas during his freshman year of college. He said he was pretending he loved college in response to his hometown friends gushing about their experiences.    

“It wasn’t until later that I realized, ‘Oh, I bet they were lying as well,’” Pennebaker said. “We were all trying to pretend that everything was great, but of course, it’s not great. Lots of it is great, but a lot of it isn’t. It never occurred to me that they weren’t being authentic either.”