Self-disclosure and listener verbal support in same-gender and cross-gender friends' conversations

Abstract

Self-disclosure and listener support were examined in conversations between same-gender and cross-gender friends. Participants were university students (mean age = 19 years) from mostly middle-class European-American backgrounds. Each pair of friends was asked to discuss how their relationships with their respective families had changed since entering college. Self-disclosures and listener verbal responses were coded from transcripts of the taped conversations. Coded listener responses ranged in how explicitly they acknowledged and supported the friend's disclosure. The Kraemer-Jacklin statistic was used to test for speaker gender, partner gender, and interaction effects: First, contrary to expectation, men made more disclosures than did women. Second, clarification questions were more likely in response to disclosures from male friends than female friends. Finally, women used more active understanding responses with female friends than did women with male friends, men with female friends, or men with male friends. Taken together, the results highlight ways in which women and men may express intimacy and show support differently depending on both the speaker's gender and the partner's gender.