Mysterious Code of Silence

The mysterious aura of celebrities is what makes us admire and follow them, until a reality show airs all their secret details and the mystery vanishes.  Even though reality shows have a large audience that follows them, it still falls under a TV genre that is frowned upon or lesser valued. I wonder if revealing all our secrets or intimate details is the reason for revulsion towards reality TV? Apparently, everyone across different cultures has some sort of code of silence, motivation or even encourages to keep quiet about certain topics. I experienced that people do not like to talk about money in America. In America, people are willing to share personal details, i.e. address, telephone number or email with cashiers and retailers, whereas, a German would never give out their personal information because it’s considered invading one’s privacy unless they are about to seal a business deal. The Asian secrecy is on an entire different level. In Pakistan, people keep the meekest details of life to themselves out of fear to chip their perfect façade of reputation, honor or to get caught in a verboten act.

What do you think are the reasons to keep quiet? Is it a cultural thing or is it just old fashioned to keep things to yourself?

Stop Spreading the News

Keeping things to oneself has some benefits, I suppose. I found some ‘good’ reasons to keep quiet about, as Psychology Today* reports on why to stop spreading the news. It says, actually telling about an event can dampen emotions as we revisit an event, we alter the emotional experience by analyzing the event. Then we rewrite the past and the story about an event might be the story last told to someone about that event. When talking about a goal, researchers show that we tend to talk up our goal, which gives us the sense of premature achievement and reduces the drive to actually achieve the goal. It also depends who we are sharing information with because not everyone responds well to good news, i.e. if the listener is passive, unresponsive or negative, telling them is actually going to overshadow your good news due to their bad mood. 

*Psychology Today March/April Issue