THE ALLURE OF SECRET RELATIONSHIPS

Two surveys and a laboratory experiment examined the role of secrecy i n attraction to relationships. In the first survey, respondents report ed that past relationships they currently continued to think about wer e more likely to have been secret than ones they no longer pondered. I n the second survey, those respondents who indicated that a past relat ionship had been secret also reported that it continued to be a target of their obsessive preoccupation. The laboratory experiment explored attraction between mixed-sex couples who were induced to play footsie under a table in the presence of another couple. When this was secret, greater attraction for the partner was reported than when it was not.