Self-disclosure

Question 1

What is self-disclosure ?

Answer 1

• Ability to open up about personal relationships
• Can happen with any relationship
• Where we gradually disclose infomation

Question 2

What are examples of self-disclosure ?

Answer 2

• family
• past relationships
• political opinions
• boundaries
• trauma
• hobbies
• job

Question 3

How does disclosure affect relationships ?

Answer 3

• Disclosure creates intimacy and emotional closeness

Question 4

What is the social penetration theory ?

Answer 4

• Altman and Taylor
• The gradual process of revealing yourself to someones
• Both people need to be self-disclosing for this process to go further
• Leads to you giving away your deepest thoughts and feelings
• This includes breadth (quantity) and depth (quality)
• The information we give out starts superficial (low risk) and can end up with revealing information (high risk)

Question 5

What is Reciprocity of self-disclosure ?

Answer 5

• Reis and Shaver
• Self-disclosure needs to be reciprocal
• This creates a balance of self-disclosure which helps create feelings of intimacy
• When one person stops revealing information it leads to depenetration

Question 6

What are the strengths of self-disclosure as a factor of attraction ?

Answer 6

Application to mariage counselling:
- By both partners talking and disclosing information it can help build trust
- This can help couples rediscover attraction
- In some cases, self-disclosure can help reinvent attraction for a marriage

Research support:
- Laurenceau
- self-report diaries have indicated that high-levels of self disclosure are associated with high levels of intimacy in long term relationships
- low self disclosure leads to low levels of intimacy
- Study has high levels of validity as it researched real relationships

Question 7

What are the limitations of self-disclosure as a factor of attraction ?

Answer 7

Self-disclosure may not cause attraction
- There may be third variable involved such as a biological attraction to someone
- or attraction may cause people to self-disclose rather than the other way round
- Nothing to prove that it attraction is definitely caused by self disclosure

Cultural relativism
- Self-disclosure is culturally relative
- This is because it is an individualistic theory
- This is because only in Western cultures is disclosure found as attractive
- In collectivist cultures people feel unable to disclose information/ it isn’t the norm to find that attractive