Factors Affecting Attraction - Self Disclosure

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  • Factors Affecting Attraction - Self Disclosure (Altman & Taylor)
    • Social penetration theory
      • Gradual process of revealing your inner self to someone else. Both partners reveal personal info to demonstrate trust & gain a greater understanding of each other
    • Breadth & depth of self-disclosure
      • As these increase, partner commitment increases - layers like an onion. "on the surface" info can be revealed to anyone but "deeper" info has to be strategically revealed. demonstrates trust
    • Reciprocity of self-disclosure
      • Hopefully both partners want to disclose deeper information about themselves which will increase intimacy and deepens the relationship
    • Support from research studies
      • Sprecher & Hendrich (2004) studied heterosexual dating couples and found strong correlations between measures of satisfaction & self disclosure. those who used and believed in self-disclosure were more satisfied and committed to their relationship.
      • Laurenceau (2005) used a method that involved daily diary entries. He found that perceived self-disclosure in married couples had higher levels of intimacy. This increases validity.
    • Real life applications
      • People often use self-disclosure  purposefully to increase intimacy. Hass & Stafford (1998) found that 57% of gay men & women in their study said that honest self-disclosure was the main way they maintained their commitment.
    • Cultural differences
      • This explanation isn't true across all cultures. Tang (2013) reviewed research into sexual self-disclosure. Concluded that men and women in USA (individualist) used self-disclosure more often than those in China (collectivist).

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