What is the spiral of silence George Loewenstein describes with Cass Sunstein?

In a paper with Cass Sunstein, George Loewenstein describes a spiral of silence: people do not talk about things they are ashamed of, so those experiences seem rare, which makes anyone who has them more ashamed and less likely to speak. He says sharing negative feelings is a public good, and recalls the relief of hearing a friend casually mention the same private problem he had hidden since adolescence.

• Loewenstein links it to Thoreau's phrase about lives of quiet desperation, which came up repeatedly in his misery survey.
• Many respondents to that survey were still living with miseries from decades earlier.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Hidden Brain (2026-10-12). Read the whole episode summary →

▸More from this episode