Effects of Personalistic Self-Disclosure

Abstract

The present experiment was designed to readdress the issue of whether or not there are special effects of "personalistic" self-disclosure (Jones & Archer, 1976). Subjects were exposed to a confederate who disclosed at either high or low levels of intimacy, and subsequently learned that the confederate felt that the level of intimacy of her disclosure was determined by 1)her dispositional characteristics, 2) characteristics of the subject, or 3) the situation. The personalism hypothesis predicts that confederates who attribute their disclosing behavior to characteristics of the subject will increase the subject's liking for them when the disclosure is perceived to be at a high level of intimacy, but will decrease the subject's liking/for them when the disclosure is perceived to be at a low level of intimacy. The results supported the personalism hypothesis predictions and are discussed in terms of the contrasting findings of Jones and Archer and the implications of the attributional perspective for understanding self-disclosure phenomena.