Gender Role Orientation and Relational Closeness: Self-Disclosive Behavior in Same-Sex Male Friendships

Abstract

Although the nature of intimacy within same-sex male friendships exhibits a marked difference from that of same-sex female friends, the open sharing of the self (known as self-disclosure) does occur regularly among male friends, albeit to a varying degree. The present research looks at the relationship between gender role orientation and self-disclosive behavior, empirically confronting the cultural stereotype that the enactment of self-disclosure is gendered. Most significantly, the present research looks at the effects of various conceptualizations of self-disclosure on multiple measures of closeness within a relationship, with increasing self-disclosure consistently found to be positively correlated with measures of increasing closeness within men's same-sex friendships.