*Click on title/doi for paper
Publications
Moulton-Tetlock, E., Ahn, J., Haines, E., & Mason, Malia. (in press). Women’s Work: Remembering Communal Goals. Motivation Science.
Slepian, M.L., & Moulton-Tetlock, E. (in press). Confiding secrets and well-being. Social Psychological and Personality Science. DOI link
How does confiding secrets relate to well-being? The current work presents the first empirical test of the well-being consequences of confiding diverse real-world secrets to actual, known others. We examined over 800 participants with more than 10,000 secrets in total, finding that confiding a secret does not predict reduced instances of concealment. Rather, confiding a secret predicts higher well-being through perceived coping efficacy. Correlational and experimental studies find that through confiding a secret, people feel they obtain social support and are more capable in coping with the secret. Additionally, through perceived coping efficacy, confiding a secret predicts less frequent mind-wandering to the secret. Confiding predicts higher well-being through changing the way and how often people think about their secret.
