Willingness to Self-Disclose to Female and Male Friends as a Function of Social Anxiety and Gender

Abstract

Research indicates that women's and men's willingness to self-disclose to others about themselves varies as a function of the characteristics of the disclosure recipient and the disclosure topic. The present investigation was conducted to examine the self-presentational impact of social anxiety on women's and men's willingness to discuss the instrumental-masculine and expressive-feminine aspects of themselves with their male and female friends. Multivariate results demonstrated that high-social-anxiety women were more willing to discuss expressive-feminine behavioral information with their female friends and less willing to discuss instrumental-masculine behavioral information with their male friends, whereas high-social-anxiety men were more willing to self-disclose about their instrumental-masculine behaviors with their male friends and less willing to self-disclose about their expressive-feminine behaviors with their female friends. These findings suggest that high-social-anxiety males and females may be socialized to view the potential social rewards and costs of self-disclosure differently, thereby affecting their willingness to discuss the instrumental and expressive aspects of themselves with others.