FAA: self-disclosure

• Self-disclosure:

  • Is revealing personal information about yourself important in a romantic relationship? Why?
  • At the start of a relationship, we love to learn more about our partner and the more we learn the more we like them
  • E.g. Sharing likes/dislikes, hopes/fears, interests/attitudes
  • Our partner understands us better and we understand them more too
• Self-disclosure:

  • So self-disclosure has a vital role in a relationship, beyond the initial attraction
  • But most people are careful about what they disclose to begin with 
  • However, used wisely it can help the course of true love
• Social penetration theory:

  • Altman and Taylor developed the social penetration theory of how relationships develop
  • It is the gradual process of revealing your inner self to somebody, by giving away your deepest thoughts/feelings
  • In romantic relationships it involves the reciprocal exchange of information
  • When one partner reveals something they display trust
  • To go further, the other partner must also reveal sensitive information
• Social penetration theory:

  • As they increasingly disclose more and more information, romantic partners ‘penetrate’ more deeply into each other’s lives and gain greater understanding of each other
• Breadth and depth of self-disclosure:

  • According to Altman and Taylor, self-disclosure has two elements: breadth and depth
  • As both increase, romantic partners become more committed to each other
  • The researchers use the metaphor of many layers of an onion
  • We disclose a lot about ourselves at the start of a relationship, but much of it is superficial and ‘on the surface’
• Breadth and depth:

  • It is the kind of ‘low-risk’ information we would reveal to anyone
  • Breadth of what we disclose is narrow because some topic are off-limits to begin with – if we disclose too much too soon it could threaten the relationship
  • However, as the relationship develops, self-disclosure becomes deeper, progressively removing more and more layers to reveal our true selves
  • Eventually we are prepared to reveal intimate, high-risk, powerful feelings and even secrets
• Reciprocity of self-disclosure:

  • eis and Shaver suggest that for relationships to develop there needs to be a reciprocal element to disclosure 
  • This means that once you have decided to disclose something that reveals your true self, your partner should respond with empathy, understanding 
  • And most importantly, your partner should also disclose their own intimate thoughts and feelings
  • This creates a balance of self-disclosure between both partners which increases feelings of intimacy and deepens the relationship
• AO3:

  • There is research to support self-disclosure explanations of attraction.
  • Sprecher and Hendrick (2004) found a strong correlation between satisfaction and self-disclosure in heterosexual dating couples
  • This suggests that self-disclosure by men and women leads to more satisfaction and commitment to their romantic relationships
• AO3:

  • A strength of research into self-disclosure is that it can help people who want to improve communication in their relationship
  • For example, Hass and Stafford (1998) found that 57% of gay men and women in their study said that open and honest self-disclosure was the main way they maintained and deepened their committed relationship
  • Therefore, such real life application demonstrates the value of the psychological research for relationships
• AO3:

  • One limitation of the self-disclosure explanation of attraction is that it does not take into account cultural differences
  • For example, Tang et al. (2013) found that men and women in the USA (individualist culture) self-disclose more sexual thoughts/feelings than men and women in China (collectivist culture)
  • Both these levels of self-disclosure were linked to relationship satisfaction in those cultures
  • Western theories of self-disclosure are not universally applicable due to cultural differences in the need for deeply personal self-disclosure for relationship satisfaction.
• AO3:

  • A limitation of self-disclosure theory is that self-disclosure does not always lead to relationship satisfaction
  • For example, during the breakdown of a relationship, partners might attempt to save their relationship by having deep intimate conversations in which they self-disclose a lot
  • However, in some cases this may still fail to save their relationship
  • Therefore, in contrast to the self-disclosure theory, deep self-disclosures cannot always rescue a relationship and can even sometimes contribute to its breakdown.