Factors affecting attraction

• Self-disclosure: Revealing personal information about yourself, romantic partners reveal more about their true self's as their relationship develops. This strengthens the romantic bond when used appropriately.
• Social penetration theory:

  • Altman and Taylor said it is the gradual process of reveling yourself to another, giving away your deepest thoughts and feelings.
  • In romantic partners it involves the reciprocal exchange of information, it signals that they trust each other.
  • As they disclose more it causes further penetration into each others lives.
• Self-disclosure has two elements- breadth and depth
• Breadth refers to the amount of things you disclose, at the start of the relationship partners disclose a lot of superficial information as it is low-risk and won't be seen as too much information.
• As relationships develop, self-disclosure becomes deeper, reveling more of our true self to our partner. Eventually it leads to people revealing very high-risk information to each other.
• Altman and Taylor also use the term depenetration to describe how dissatisfied partners self disclose less as they gradually disengage from the relationship.
• Reis and Shaver found that it is also important for self-disclosure to be reciprocated, creating a balance between the couple. If successful it will create a deeper and more loving relationship.
• Evaluation of self-disclosure: Research support

  • Sprecher and Hendrick studied hetrosexual couples and found strong correlations between satisfaction and self disclosure especially when reciprocated.
  • This increases the validity of the theory.
• Evaluation of self-disclosure: Research support counterpoint

  • Correlation doesn't mean causation, even if there is a strong correlation it doesn't mean that self-disclosure causes a strong relationship.
  • This reduces the validity of the argument.
• Evaluation of self-disclosure: Real-world application

  • Research into self-disclosure can help people who want to improve communication in their relationships.
  • Haas and Stafford found 57% of homosexual couples said they use self-disclosure to strengthen their relationship.
  • Its valuable in helping fix peoples relationships.