Factors Affecting Attraction In Relationship: Self- Disclosure

Question 1

What is self-disclosure and who suggests it

Answer 1

Jouroud-
Relationship formation is built on trust with one another. The more you disclose with each other the more intimate the relationship will be.

Question 2

What is the onion metaphor

Answer 2

Peel back the layers of someone till you get to the ‘core’ of the person where their most private and personal information is. The outer layer is basic low risk info about the person.

Question 3

What is breadth and depth

Answer 3

-as the trust builds the depth of the info given to each other grows
-at the beginning we disclose low risk info and the breadth of the info is narrow as we don’t want to threaten the relationship by disclosing to high risk info.
-the deeper the relationship goes the more both these aspects increase.

Question 4

What is the social penetration theory

Answer 4

Where you gradually reveal emotions and experiences to a partner and they disclose equal/similar info in terms of high/low risk info.
-forms deeper trust in romantic relationship

Question 5

Sprechers study- reciprocal self-disclosure in relationships

Answer 5

156 American uni students in a Skype convo
1- self disclosed in reciprocal manner take turn answering questions
2-self-disclosure was not reciprocal, one disclosed whilst the other listened.

Results- 1- pp reported greater liking, closeness and enjoyment to each other than group 2.

Conclusion- reciprocity of self-disclosure has positive outcomes on romantic relationships
✅- on skype so researcher can rewatch and make sure they don’t miss any key infomation

Question 6

Further research support of reciprocated self-disclosure on relationships
Spretcher and Hendrick
Lauren

Answer 6

1-Studied metrosexual couples and found strong correlation between satisfaction and self-disclosure in both partners.

2-wrote daily diaries and found self-disclosure was linked to higher levels of intimacy in long term married couples. The opposite was also found to be true.

Question 7

Evaluation of the role of self-disclosure on relationships

Answer 7

✅- 3 supporting studies
✅-real life application used in marriage counselling
✅- high ecological validity as used with real couples

❌-cant generalise to homosexual couples
❌-culture bias- based on western relationships eg Americans self disclose more sexual thoughts than in China as it’s not been normalised to talk about.
❌-correlational- they could be extranous variables effecting how good or bad the relationship is.