title: Exploring the secrecy burden: secrets, preoccupation, and perceptual judgments.
abstract: Recent work suggests that secrecy is perceived as burdensome. A secrecy-burden relationship would have a number of consequences for cognitive, perceptual, social, and health psychology, but the reliability of these influences, and potential mechanisms that support such influences are unknown. Across 4 studies, the current work examines both the reliability of, and mechanisms that support, the influence of secrecy processes upon a judgment that varies with diminished resources (i.e., judgments of hill slant). The current work finds that a manipulation of secret "size" fails to reliably predict judged hill slant, whereas measurement and manipulation of preoccupation with a secret does reliably predict judged hill slant. Moreover, these effects are found to be mediated by judged effort to keep the secret, consistent with a resource-based mechanism of the burdens of secrecy.
authors: Management Division, Columbia University.
authors: Michael L
authors: ML
authors: Slepian
authors: Department of Psychology, Stanford University.
authors: Nicholas P
authors: NP
authors: Camp
authors: Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University.
authors: E J
authors: EJ
authors: Masicampo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003219:Confidentiality / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*