Effects of Familiarity on Self-Disclosure in a Client-Counselor Relationship

Abstract

A modified version of Jourard's self-disclosure questionnaire was administered at periodic intervals to 33 undergraduates in psychology who were volunteer counselors for youths referred to the Wayne County Juvenile Court. They reported self-disclosure for themselves and their clients. It was predicted that self-disclosure would increase in a linear fashion with time and that clients' self-disclosure would be related to level of disclosure by counselors. Although the change in self-disclosure was statistically significant, the linear trend did not account for the major portion of the variance. The quadratic and quartic trends were also significant for the counselors' self-disclosure, while the linear and quartic trends accounted for most of the variability in clients' self-disclosure. These clients disclosed significantly more than the student-counselors. Although the 18 female dyads disclosed more, sex differences were not statistically significant.