Factors affecting attraction - self disclosure

• Self disclosure is revealing personal information about yourself. Romantic partners reveal more and more about their true selves as their relationship develops. These self disclosures can strengthen a romantic bond when used appropriately
• self disclosure is a major concept within Altman and Taylor's social penetration theory of how relationships develop.

  It is the gradual process of revealing your inner self to someone else and involves reciprocal exchange of information between intimate partners. When a partner reveals information they are singalling that they trust the other
• As they disclose more and more, romantic partners penetrate more deeply into eachother's life and gain a greater understanding of each other
• Altman and taylor suggest that self disclosure has two elements - breadth and depth

  As both of these increase, romantic partners become more committed to each other

  • We disclose a lot about ourselves at the start of the relationship but this is superficial,surface level and low risk information that we would reveal to anyone. breadth disclosure is narrow as many topics are off limits
  • as the relationship develops, self disclosure becomes deeper, revealing high risk,intimate information - painful memories, strongly held beliefs etc.
• Altman and Taylor use the term depenetration to describe how dissatisfied partners self disclose less as they gradually disengage from the relationship
• Reis and Shaver suggets that for a relationship to develop as well as an increase in breadth and depth there needs to be a reciprocal element to disclosure

  There needs to be a balance of self disclosure between both partners in a successful romantic relationship
• several predictions about self disclosure derived from social penetration theory have been supported by research.

  Sprecher and Hendrick studied heterosexual dating couples and found strong correlations between measures of satisfaction and self disclosure for both partners

  • men and women who used self disclosure were more satisfied and committed to their relationship
  • Sprecher showed that relationships are more satisfying when partners take turns to self disclose
  • Increases the validity of the theory
• Much self disclosure research is correlational. It is assumed that greater self disclosure creates more satisfaction but a correlation doesn't tell us if this is a valid conclusion to draw. There may be alternative explanations such as the more satisfied the partners the more they self disclose. or self disclosure and satisfaction may be independent from eachother and they may be a third variable i.e. amount of time spent together.

  Self disclosure may not cause satisfaction directly
• Self disclosure can help people who want to improve their communication in relationships

  romantic partners may use self disclosure deliberately to increase intimacy. Hass and Stafford found that 57% of homosexual men and women said that honest self disclosure was the main way they maintained their relationships

  • if less skilled partners learn to self disclose then this could bring several benefits to relationships by deeping satisfaction and commitment
  • Psychological insights are valuable in helping people who have problems in their relationship
• This is not true for all cultures - increasing breadth and depth may not lead to more satisfying relationships

  Tang et al. reviewed research into sexual self disclosure. they concluded that men and women in the US self disclose significantly more sexual thoughts than men and women in China.

  Despite lower levels of self disclosure in China levels of satisfaction were no different than those in the US

  Limited explanation of romantic relationships because it's based on Western cultures , which are not generalisable