Have you ever wished you didn’t have to keep so many things to yourself? At least once in their lives every person has kept some sort of information to themselves, whether it was to avoid conflict or bothering someone or something else. This behavior is known as self-censorship. To many this is a natural aspect of their lives. Sometimes it’s just better to keep your mouth shut, right? Well, psychology actually proves otherwise.
The Proof
(Click Here For Self-Censorship Survey Results) I conducted an experiment on self-censorship in hopes of discovering how censorship affects a person's mental health. The experiment took place from August 31st, 2023 to September 4th, 2023 with seven participants. After agreeing to the experiment and being debriefed on both the experiment's goals and their ability to pull out from the experiment at any time, participants were asked on August 31st to fill out a twenty-question survey for an Initial. The Initial provided data on how often the participants typically self-censored as well as their typical mental state. On September 1st, participants were asked to spend the day censoring themselves as much as possible and were then asked on September 2nd to fill out the survey once again for the Self-Censorship Day. The following day, September 3rd, participants were asked to censor themselves as little as possible and on September 4th they were asked to fill out the survey for a final time for the No-Censorship Day.
Disagreements or Judgement: Which is Worse? While the Initial aspect of the survey mainly served as a control group to see how often people typically censor themselves it also showed an interesting trend about when people censor themselves. Within the first section of the survey, which questioned about censorship rather then feelings, there were a number of questions that were extremely similar. These sets of questions (One and Two, Four and Five, Eight and Nine) questioned about censorship on similar topics such as political beliefs or opinions. However, each set had one question that stated the motivation for the censorship was to avoid possible negative judgement and one question that stated the motivation for the censorship was to avoid disagreeing with other people. In all three cases, within the Initial survey, participants indicated that they were more likely to censor themselves to avoid disagreeing with other people rather then to avoid being judged. This suggests that people are more likely to be open about who they are so long as they believe it will not result in any conflict and that people dislike conflict more then they do judgement.
Censorship's Effect on Emotions While the first section of the survey questioned participants on the frequency and motivations behind their censorship the second section inquired on their emotional and mental state. A number of questions were asked on how often the participants felt sad, stressed, or frustrated and a trend occurred across the board in all three areas. The data clearly showed an increase in negative emotions during the self-censorship period and a decrease of negative emotions during the non-censorship period. Participants reported feeling more depressed, lacking of motivation, and having more negative self-thoughts when they purposely went out of their way to censor themselves. The participants also reported an increase in their stress levels and general frustration. In comparison, the participants reported feeling happier, less stressed, and less frustrated when they went out of their way to be more open. This proves that self-censorship has a negative effect on people's emotional states and that being more open could contribute to a person's greater well-being.
Censorship's Effect on Relationships The second section of the survey also showed a trend when it came to the participant's feelings on other people and their relationships. The participants reported that when purposefully censoring themselves they felt lonelier, less valued and included, and experienced in increase of negative thoughts about those around them. Constantly, when purposefully being more open participants reported feeling more included, valued, and experiencing a reduction in feelings of loneliness and negative thoughts about others. While censorship is harmful for a person's general mental and emotional health this data proves that it is also harmful for the relationships within people's lives. It also proves that being more open can possibly lead to a strengthening of a person's interpersonal relationships.
Self-Censorship and Memory
Self-censorship is deeply connected to a person’s memory. As was discovered in the survey, people most often censor themselves when wishing to avoid an argument or disagreement of some kind. If someone in your life has previously shown to be disagreeable or antagonistic around certain topics you are more likely to avoid talking about those subjects even if you have opinions on them, right? This is the critical basis to self-censorship and neurologically this process hinders on your amygdala. The amygdala is the aspect of the brain that handles episodic memory, recognizing threats, and linking fear or aggression to specific people based on prior events. The reason you can recall whether or not a certain subject may cause a negative response from someone else is because your amygdala has catalogued memories of prior instances where that was the case. In other words certain subjects can become Memory Retrieval Cues around a certain person. You may be able to think about a specific topic just fine normally but around a person who previously reacted poorly to the subject thinking about the topic will then cue your brain to recall the previous incident and based on prior information most people will change the subject to avoid conflict.
With This Knowledge...
It's important to acknowledge that self-censorship is a natural reaction for everybody, the Initial survey proved this. The brain initiates this response as defense mechanism, because sometimes being honest does have a chance of leading to conflict or harm. Not to mention sometimes people censor themselves just to spare other people's feelings. Most people would admit that complete honesty is both an impossible goal and a potentially harmful one for all those involved. However, what this experiment had also shown is that censoring oneself to much is equally as harmful. It's important to find a balence between expressing yourself and keeping certain things to yourself when the topic calls for it. At the end of the day what can be taken from this experiment is that sometimes it's okay--good, even--to be open about your thoughts, feelings, and identity. Humans are expressive and social beings, we aren't meant to hold everything in.