In the world of new relationships, finding the right amount to self-disclose can feel like walking on a dangerous precipice. Show your feelings too soon, and you run the risk of seeming inappropriate, if not desperate. Wait too long, though, and you’ll seem distant, remote, and standoffish.
When it comes to self-disclosure, the Goldilocks principle seems to apply. However, it’s hard to know what the “right amount” might be. You don’t want to share too much or too little, and you also need to figure out how to strike that perfect balance according to the stage of a relationship. Complicating matters more, if you’re typically an over-sharer, you tend to show your true feelings well before you know how the other person feels about you. On the other hand, if you tend to run toward the introverted side of the sharing dimension, you’ll hardly ever feel like it’s the right time to let your guard down.
The study of self-disclosure has a long history in psychology, particularly in the area of counseling. The psychologist Carl Rogers, founder of “client- (or person)-centered therapy” believed that the majority of people with psychological difficulties were afraid to let their feelings show. According to Rogers, you feel anxious because you grew up in a home where your parents, teachers, or other adults constantly made you feel deficient. Your anxiety translated into an unwillingness to let others know your true self. To counteract these tendencies, Rogers encouraged counselors and therapists to use a heavy dose of self-disclosure. In this way, clients would feel that it was okay to show their own feelings. Also, the self-disclosing therapist would reveal the kinds of anxieties and insecurities about which clients themselves felt ashamed. After all, if your therapist admits to feeling insecure at times, it’s a great deal easier to show your own insecurities without fearing mockery or retribution.
Self-disclosure is also a topic that would seem integral to the study of intimacy. In a truly intimate relationship, partners feel that they can reveal all because they feel they can trust each other with their innermost secrets. However, reaching that point of true intimacy doesn’t come suddenly. As a couple’s bonds deepen, they are continually testing how much and in what areas of their lives they can self-disclose. It’s okay to tell even an acquaintance that you really dislike kale, no matter how hard you try to incorporate it into your diet. You’d be unlikely to tell someone you barely know that you your first marriage ended because your spouse was unfaithful to you.
Within the study of close relationships, the topic of self-disclosure hasn’t quite reached the level of awareness of, in contrast, attachment style. However, there are some intriguing findings from a 2013 study that provide suggestions that we can translate into practical terms. Susan Sprecher, of Illinois State University, and colleagues examined self-disclosure reciprocity among strangers to see how the mutual sharing of personal information influenced the degree to which they liked each other. The situation would be similar to the real-world situation in which you meet someone for the first time, hoping to make a positive impression. In other words, this is the type of self-disclosure that influences your success in the singles scene or, possibly, your ability to impress favorably a future co-worker or even employer.
Once a conversation gets going, people often reciprocate the extent to which they self-disclose. When someone shares personal information with you, it’s likely that you’ll respond in kind with a similar degree of candor about yourself. What Sprecher and her team wondered was whether people like each other better or not after engaging in reciprocal self-disclosure. After all, you might find yourself sharing some very personal details with a seatmate while you’re traveling on public transportation who is similarly self-disclosing. However, do you end up actually liking that person better than you would if you simply exchanged pleasantries (or complaints) about your experience?
One theory of self-disclosure proposes that you tend to reciprocate because you assume that someone who discloses to you likes and trusts you. The more you, in turn, self-disclose, the more your relationship partner likes and trusts you, and then self-discloses even more. This is the social attraction-trust hypothesis of self-disclosure reciprocity. The second theory is based on social exchange theory, and proposes that we reciprocate self-disclosure in order to keep a balance in the relationship. The theory basically comes down to this: You disclose, therefore I disclose.
Typically, people who are the listeners tend to like people who disclose to them. When someone discloses their thoughts and feelings, you feel like you know that person better and you also feel like you can predict how he or she will react in a given situation. We’re constantly trying to figure out what people will do, and why. The clues you receive from your self-disclosing acquaintances and friends can guide your behavior with them. If you know your co-worker is having problems at home, you’ll better understand why she seems so stressed on the job.
Another wrinkle in the equation involves the pace of self-disclosure over the course of a relationship. You may do more listening than talking at one point, but then swap roles with your partner later on when either you feel you need to get something off your chest. Sprecher and her fellow researchers were interested in the effect of immediate reciprocity in an interaction among strangers compared to the effect of more extended, delayed, reciprocity such as the kind that occurs when one person listens throughout one entire interaction but then talks during the entire second interaction.
There’s a lot to take into account, then, when you consider the many complexities involving self-disclosure. To break these complexities down into their component parts, Sprecher and her fellow researchers devised a somewhat artificial situation in which pairs of participants (college undergraduates) were assigned to a reciprocal or non-reciprocal disclosure condition involving 2 interactions. In the reciprocal condition, they were given tasks in which they were instructed to engage in back-and-forth self-disclosure in the first 12-minute Skype interactive task. In the non-reciprocal condition, one person self-disclosed while the other listened for the full 12 minutes, and then swapped roles for the second 12 minutes. The reciprocal dyads continued to alternate listening and talking for both 12-minute periods.
To get the self-disclosure going, the participants were asked to answer questions that became increasingly personal over the course of their interaction. The first set of questions were typical ice-breakers (what are your favorite hobbies). The second set asked about deeper questions (would you like to be famous), and the third went into emotional topics (your favorite childhood memory). After both 12-minute interactions ended, the participants rated each other on liking, closeness, perceived similarity, and enjoyment of the interaction.
Engaging in reciprocal interactions clearly benefited the extent to which participants liked each other. The liking scores in reciporocal condition were higher than the liking scores in the non-reciprocal condition. Even after the non-reciprocal pairs swapped roles, the groups never caught up to the group who exchanged in back-and-forth self-disclosure.
These findings, which took place in a virtual face-to-face situation, present interesting dilemmas for people who are trying to forge new online relationships. Consider the typical dating sites, in which you share information about yourself and then wait to hear back from your potential partner. Because these interactions don’t occur in real time, they are comparable to the non-reciprocal condition in the experiment. To get your online partners to like you, Sprecher et al. recommend that you don’t self-disclose with these online partners until you have the chance to talk or meet—probably a good idea in any case just to protect yourself.
Secondly, the findings suggest that people who stay away from self-disclosure because they’re reticent, shy, or socially anxious may be starting their new relationships at a distinct disadvantage. Instead of jumping into a conversation that’s getting personal, they may hesitate too long and in the process lose out on the opportunity to connect to new people.
The key take-home message from this study is that when it comes to self-disclosure, reciprocity is the key to making it work for you. Someone has to get the ball rolling, and this study suggests that you’ll be liked more when it’s you who self-discloses first. However, as in this study, it may be best to start with fairly neutral topics before you delve into secrets from your deep-dark past. You can, though, be self-disclosing in those neutral areas—even about the weather. You can say that you love cold weather because it reminds you of the hometown in which you grew up, which is more self-disclosing than simply noting how cold it is but you don't mind the frigid temps.
By sharing in a reciprocal manner, you’re also showing that you value the give-and-take of relationships in which people reveal how they’re feeling. You can also self-disclose more appropriately as you take things one step at a time. If you sense that the other person doesn’t want to go deeper, you can pull out before you reveal more than the other person is comfortable with.
Goldilocks eventually found the bowl of porridge that was just right. You too can find the right degree of self-disclosure so that your own personal story can have its own happy ending.
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Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. 2014
Reference:
Sprecher, S., Treger, S., Wondra, J. D., Hilaire, N., & Wallpe, K. (2013). Taking turns: Reciprocal self-disclosure promotes liking in initial interactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 860-866. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2013.03.017