Self Disclosure

• self disclosure

  telling other people information about ourselves
• factors affecting self disclosure

  time spent together

  culture - people in individualist culture self disclose more than collectivist cultures

  gender - women normally self disclose more than men

  reciprocity
• Aaron et al (1997) - method

  investigated how self disclosure affects closeness by pairing university students with someone they didn’t know and given 15 mins to get to know each other

  one condition - given 36 questions increasing in level of self disclosure

  other condition - regular small talk
• Aaron et al (1997) - findings

  people in the self disclosure condition reported higher post-interaction closeness
• Hass & Stafford (1998)

  found that some gay couples thought self disclosure was the most important strategy in maintaining relationships
• who suggested the social penetration theory?

  Altman & Taylor
• the onion metaphor (social penetration) 


  we reveal information about ourselves in layers - we start with surface level info and gradually reveal more personal info
• Collins & Miller (1994)

  Found that we self disclose more to people we initially like, and people often like others more as a result of self disclosure
• Laurenceau et al (2005)

  recruited 96 couples through a newspaper advert and found that self disclosure is related to greater feelings of intimacy - people who complained about lack of intimacy were self disclosing less
• Sprecher et al (2013) - method

  paired American university students and asked them to have a conversation over skype- they assessed how much they liked each other, how close they felt, how similar they felt, and how much they enjoyed the interactions
• Sprecher et al (2013) - findings

  when pairs took it in turns to self disclose, all 4 measures correlated, suggesting that reciprocity has positive outcomes for relationships
• Cooper & Sportolari (1997)


  Found that people self disclose earlier online, however this made the relationship intense and difficult to maintain - ‘boom and bust’
• Positive evaluation of self disclosure

  Applications - has been successfully applied to relationship counselling where couples are encouraged to self disclose
• negative evaluations of self disclosure

  research methodology - low ecological and population validity

  nomothetic - assumes everyone’s relationships are the same

  cultural bias - based on research on Western societies