Effects of Intimacy and Sex-Role Congruency of Self-Disclosure

Abstract

Four scripts that varied on dimensions of disclosure intimacy (high vs. low) and sex role of contents (masculine vs. feminine) were prepared. Each script was attributed to a male author half the time and a female author half the time. These scripts were presented to 80 male and 80 female undergraduate subjects, each of whom believed the script he or she read to have been written by another subject. Subjects' impressions of the authors of these scripts revealed that female subjects did not respond differently to sex-role-congruent (e.g., male author, masculine sex role) than to sex-role-incongruent (e.g., male author, feminine sex role) scripts. Male subjects, however, liked authors of incongruent scripts less than authors of congruent scripts, and rated sex-role-incongruent male authors as being in poorer mental health than sex-role-congruent male authors. Analysis of the intimacy of written disclosures returned by subjects revealed reciprocity of self-disclosure intimacy: Subjects who read high-intimacy scripts returned more high-intimacy disclosure than did subjects who read low-intimacy scripts. There were no main or interaction effects of sex role or sex of author on disclosure intimacy.