VOL. 79, No.

FEBRUARY 1973

Psychological Bulletin
Copyright 1973 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

SELF-DISCLOSURE: A LITERATURE REVIEW 3

PAUL C. CO2BY2 University of Minnesota Literature relating to the verbal disclosure of information about oneself is reviewed. First, the role of self-disclosure as a personality attribute is considered. It is suggested that the failure of researchers to find consistent relationships between self-disclosure and other personality variables is due to the poor development of paper-and-pencil measures of disclosure which themselves do not relate to actual disclosure. It is suggested that researchers interested in personality correlates of self-disclosure employ behavioral measures of disclosure. The role of self-disclosure in interpersonal relationships is considered, and the principle variables that appear to facilitate disclosure are reviewed. However, it is suggested that factors inhibit intimate disclosure, such as needs for privacy, have not been adequately treated in disclosure research. The role of self-disclosure in experimenter-subject, interviewerinterviewee, and therapist-client relationships is reviewed. Finally, the review considers the relationship between self-disclosure and nonverbal aspects of communication.

Self-disclosure may be defined as any information about himself which Person A communicates verbally to a Person B. The term "self-disclosure" has been used by Jourard (e.g., 1964), although other terms such as "verbal accessibility" (e.g., Polansky, 1965), and "social accessibility" (e.g., Rickers-Ovsiankina, 1956) have been used to describe the same concept. "Self-disclosure" is used in the present paper because (a) it is the most commonly used term in the literature and (b) the term refers to both a personality construct and a process which occurs during interaction with others.
1 Preparation of this review was supported by a grant from the University of Minnesota Agriculture Experiment Station to Paul C. Rosenblatt. The author would like to thank Paul C. Rosenblatt, Ellen Berscheid, and Karl E. Weick for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, and Sidney M. Jourard and Dalmas A. Taylor for making unpublished materials available. 2 Requests for reprints should be sent to Paul C. Cozby who is now at the Department of Psychology, California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, California 92634.

MEASURING SELF-DISCLOSURE Jourard's Self-Disclosure Questionnaire The most widely used instrument to assess individual differences in self-disclosure has been Jourard's Self-Disclosure Questionnaire (JSDQ). The initial instrument, described by Jourard and Lasakow (1958), consisted of 60 items10 items in each of six content areas: attitudes and opinions, tastes and interests, work (or studies), money, personality, and body. Subjects responded to each item by indicating the extent to which the information has been revealed to four target persons: Mother, father, best opposite-sex friend, and best same-sex friend. Items were scored as 0no disclosure to the target person, 1disclosure only in general terms, or 2 full and complete disclosure about the item. Pederson and Higbee (1968) point out that subsequent research has employed variations of the JSDQ that differ on a number of dimensions, including length of questionnaire, target persons, instructions, and nature of the
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PAUL C. COZBY

items. Despite such differences (which are described at length by Pederson & Higbee, 1968), there has been a tacit assumption in the literature that the various measures are equivalent. Validity of the JSDQ. Pederson and Higbee (1968) obtained evidence for convergent and discriminant validity of the 60- and 25-item JSDQ by means of multitrail-multimethod matrices (Campbell & Fiske, 1959), but there was also evidence for variation between the two methods of measuring disclosure. The JSDQ appears to be independent of intelligence (Jourard, 1961d; Halverson & Shore, 1969; Taylor, 1968) providing evidence for discriminant validity of the JSDQ. Jourard (1961c) reported that productivity on the group Rorschach correlated .37 (p < .05) with total score on the JSDQ, and interpreted the finding as supportive of the validity of the instrument. However, there is little evidence for the predictive validity of the JSDQ. Researchers have been unable to find a relationship between the JSDQ and actual disclosure in a situation (Ehrlich & Graeven, 1971; Himelstein & Kimbrough, 1963; Lubin & Harrison, 1964; Vondracek, 1969a, 1969b) or ratings of actual disclosure made by peers (Himelstein & Lubin, 1965; Hurley & Hurley, 1969). Pederson and Breglio (1968b) did find that amount and intimacy of disclosure on written self-descriptions were correlated with total scores on the 60-item JSDQ, but not on the 25-item JSDQ. Burhenne and Mirels (1970) found that rated disclosure on written selfdescriptions correlated exactly .00 with the JSDQ. It is clear that the JSDQ does not accurately predict actual self-disclosure. The explanation perhaps lies in the fact that scores on the JSDQ reflect subjects' past history of disclosure to parents and persons who are labeled "best same-sex friend" and "best opposite-sex friend." When actual disclosure is measured, the subject is disclosing to an experimenter or to peers whom the subject has never met. Jourard and his students have recently begun using a 40-item questionnaire which asks subjects to indicate what they have disclosed to someone in the past, and what they

would be willing to disclose to a stranger of the same sex (see Jourard, 1969, Appendix 1, for a description of the questionnaire). This questionnaire has been shown to predict actual disclosure in studies by Drag 3 and Jourard and Resnick (1970). These studies also indicate that situational variables may outweigh individual differences in disposition to disclose. The problem of the validity of the JSDQ is discussed further after the review of attempts to relate personality variables to selfdisclosure. Other Measures of Self-Disclosure Several investigators have developed other measures of self-disclosure. Since these measures have not been widely used, or were developed for specific types of subjects, they are discussed only briefly. 1. West and Zingle (1969) describe a SelfDisclosure Inventory for Adolescents. 2. Vondracek and Vondracek (1971) have developed a system for scoring self-disclosure by preadolescents in interview situations. 3. The Social Accessibility Scale consisting of 25 items has been described by RickersOvsiankina (1956), and a 50-item version is described by Rickers-Ovsiankina and Kusmin (1958). The scale differs from the JSDQ in that (a) subjects are instructed to indicate what they would disclose rather than what they have disclosed and (6) the target persons are a stranger, an acquaintance, and a best friend. Pederson and Higbee (1968) correlated the 60- and 25-item JSDQ with the 50-item Social Accessibility Scale, and concluded that the two measures should not be considered equivalent, as has been done previously (cf. Jourard, 1964). 4. Polansky's (1965) concept of "verbal accessibility" has been measured by the incomplete sentence method, degree of agreement with such statements as "the really smart guys keep their opinions to themselves," and reports of caseworkers (Polansky & Brown, 1967).
3 L. R. Drag. Experimenter-subject interaction: A situational determinant of differential levels of selfdisclosure. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Florida, 1968.

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75

5. Taylor and Altman (1966) scaled 671 statements for intimacy value and topical category. Although these statements do not comprise a disclosure questionnaire, the statements can be used to construct a questionnaire. The previously discussed measure currently being used by Jourard (1969) uses the Taylor and Altman statements. A 144-item questionnaire using the statements, which uses "best friend" as the only target person, correlates .25 (p < .05) with actual disclosure in an interview situation (Vondracek & Marshall, 1971). Although significant, this correlation is not impressive. It would be interesting to know if such a correlation would be raised by including "stranger" as a target person. The statements may also be used as stimulus materials for experimental manipulations, and as a means of scoring speech content for self-disclosure. PARAMETERS OF SELF-DISCLOSURE The basic parameters of self-disclosure are (a) breadth or amount of information disclosed, (b) depth or intimacy of information disclosed, and (c) duration or time spent describing each item of information. In actual disclosure, intimacy and duration of disclosure appear to be partially independent, with a correlation of .42 between the two variables (Vondracek, 1969a). There is an inverse relationship between amount and intimacy of disclosure such that individuals disclose less about more intimate topics (Altman & Haythorn, 1965; Fitzgerald, 1963; Hood & Back, 1971; Jourard & Lasakow, 1958; Taylor, 1968; Taylor, Altman, & Sorrentino, 1969; Tuckman, 1966), and the effect appears to hold across cultures (Brown, 1965; Melikian, 1962). Little work has been done on the content of information disclosed, although there is some research on the positive or negative aspects of the information. Levin and Gergen (1969) found that individuals disclose more positive aspects of themselves when trying to be ingratiating than when trying to be honest. Wives tend to communicate more unpleasant feelings, including anxieties and worries, but not more pleasant feelings than do husbands (Katz, Goldston, Cohen, & Stucker, 1963; Levinger & Senn, 1967).

SELF-DISCLOSURE AS A PERSONALITY CONSTRUCT Selj-Disclosure and Family Patterns One question one may ask when dealing with personality variables is what sorts of child-rearing practices and family interaction patterns are associated with variations in the personality variable in adulthood. Dimond and Munz (1967) found and later replicated (Diamond & Hellkamp, 1969), that later borns show higher self-disclosure scores than firstborns. They concluded that while firstborns may have greater affiliative needs than later borns, they are not as adept at satisfying them, at least by establishing close relationships with others. Jourard (1961b) found that Jewish males were significantly higher in disclosure than Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics, none of which differed significantly from one another. However, Low 4 did not find a difference between Jewish and Protestant groups. Cooke5 obtained a correlation of .22 (p < .05) between disclosure to parents and religious behavior (e.g., frequency of church attendance) of protestants. Jennings (1971) did not find a relationship between disclosure and whether religious beliefs are "liberal" or "conservative." Presumably, any effects of religious background on disclosure are mediated by a closer family orientation. A recent study by Pederson and Higbee (1969b) found that disclosure to parents was correlated with subjects' ratings of parents on such adjectives as close, warm, friendly, and accepting. In addition, it was found that females who rated the mother as cold, distrustful, and selfish tended to score high on the Social Accessibility Scale which measures willingness to disclose to strangers, acquaintances, and/or best friends. Thus, it seems possible that family relationships are more important in determining who a person dis4 A. B. Low. Sex and religious differences in selfdisclosure as determined by a revised method of scoring the "Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire." Unpublished master's thesis, University of Florida, 1964. 8 T. F. Cooke. Interpersonal correlates of religious behavior. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Florida, 1962.

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PAUL C. COZBY

closes to rather than whether or not the person will be a high discloser. Such an interpretation is supported by Doster and Strickland's (1969) finding that, while, in general, high disclosers perceive their parents as more nurturant than low disclosures, subjects from the low-nurturant homes disclose more to friends than parents while the reverse is true with subjects from high-nurturant families. Sex, Race, and Cultural Factors in S elj-Disclosure Sex differences. Jourard and Lasakow (1958) reported that females have higher disclosure scores than males. This effect has been replicated in numerous investigations (Dimond & Munz, 1967; Himelstein & Lubin, 1965; Hood & Back, 1971; Jourard & Landsman, 1960; Jourard & Richman, 1963; Pederson & Breglio, 1968a; Pederson & Higbee, 1969a). Jourard (1964, Ch. 6) attributed considerable importance to the obtained sex differences. The low disclosure of males was seen to be directly associated with less empathy, insight, and a shorter life-span than females. However, a number of studies have reported no sex differences in selfdisclosure (Dimond & Hellkamp, 1969; Doster & Strickland, 1969; Low, (see Footnote 4); Plog, 1965; Rickers-Ovsiankina & Kusmin, 1958; Vondracek & Marshall, 1971; Weigel, Weigel, & Chadwick, 1969; Zief 6 ). Jourard (1964) and Plog (1965) have suggested that conflicting findings concerning sex differences may be the result of samples from different geographical areas with a concomitant difference in sex role expectations. Sex differences would be found in the southern United States, but not in the northern and western United States. However, an examination of the studies which tested for sex differences yields no consistent pattern which would allow the conflicting results to be explained by differences in geographic locale or type of instrument used. The fact that no study has reported greater male disclosure may be indicative of actual sex differences. The nature of any sex dif0 R. M. Zief. Values and self-disclosure. Unpublished honors' thesis, Harvard University, 1962.

ferences might be found if researchers were to pay greater attention to the types of items which reliably discriminate between males and females, and types of situations in which males and females would or would not differ in disclosure output. For instance, Pederson and Breglio (1968a), using written selfdescriptions, found that females did not use more words to describe themselves than males, but they disclosed more intimate information about themselves than males. Race, ethnic group, and social class factors. Jourard and Lasakow (1958) reported less disclosure by blacks than by whites. This finding has been replicated by Dimond and Hellkamp (1969), and by Littlefield 7 who also reported less disclosure by MexicanAmericans than by blacks. There is some evidence that racial differences in self-disclosure may be due to social class factors. Jaffee and Polansky (1962) found no differences in disclosure between lower-class blacks and lowerclass whites. Mayer (1967) had reported that middle-class women disclose more about their marital difficulties than do working-class women. Tulkin (1970) presents data from an ongoing study which indicate that middle-class mothers initiate a greater number of verbalizations and respond to a greater percentage of the child's vocalizations than lower-class mothers. These results suggest that the reinforcement patterns that lead to variations in self-disclosure in adulthood may be operating as soon as the infant begins to babble. Cross-cultural findings. Lewin (1948) observed that Americans disclose a great deal about themselves and make friends easily, but do not develop highly intimate relationships, while Germans don't disclose much about themselves to others in general, but they do become quite intimate with a few others. Plog (1965) obtained evidence for the hypothesis that Americans disclose more than Germans. However, the hypothesis that Germans would disclose more than Americans to a close friend of the same or opposite sex was not supported.
' R. P. Littlefield. An analysis of the self-disclosure patterns of ninth grade public school children in three selected subcultural groups. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Florida State University, 1968.

SELF-DISCLOSURE TABLE 1 STUDIES WHICH EXAMINED THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELP-DISCLOSUKE AND MENTAL HEALTH
Subjects Author and date
Sex Age

77

Measure of mental healLh

Positive relationships between disclosure and mental health Mayo (1968) Taylor, Altman, & Frankfurt (sec Footnote 8) Pederson Si Higbee (1969a)

F M F

Adult 17-20"

80 100 51

Neurotic inpatients compared with normals MMPI Hy, Us, Sc, Pd Pederson Personality Inventory Cycloid disposition scale

CS

Negative relationships between disclosure and mental health Pederson & Higbee (1969a) Pederson & Breglio (1968a) Truax & Wittmer (in press) Persons & Marks (19VO) Cozby (1972)

M F M/F M F

CS CS CS CS

56 26 89 81 30

18-22b

Pederson Personality Inventory Cycloid disposition scale Cycloid disposition scale MMPI adjustment profile MMPI F, Pd, Pa, Sc Ratings of hypothetical stranger disclosing at low, medium, and high levels of intimacy

No relationship between disclosure and mental health Stanley & Bownes (1966) Pederson & Breglio (1968a) Jourard (1964, p. 181)
Note. Abbreviations: CS = college students. Naval recruits. b Prison inmates.

M/F M

CS CS CS

137 26

Maudsley Personality Inventory neuroticism scale Pederson Personality Inventory Cycloid disposition scale Applicants for clinical services

Self-Disclosure and Mental Health Jourard (19S9a) argued that the ability to allow one's real self to be known to at least one "significant" other is a prerequisite for a healthy personality. Concerned with the concept of self-actualization (Maslow, 1954), Jourard proposed that low disclosure is indicative of a repression of self and an inability to grow as a person. Jourard (1964) elaborated on the self-disclosure-mentalhealth relationship, and suggested that the relationship between the two variables is curvilinear. Although this brief summary does little justice to Jourard's (19S9a, 1963, 1964) views, it serves as an introduction to research investigating the relationship between selfdisclosure and mental health. Jourard's writings indicate that disclosure

should be negatively related to "clinical" maladjustment and also positively to "positive" mental health (e.g., self-actualization). Table 1 summarizes the studies which have looked at the former type of mental health. With regard to the studies that support Jourard's initial hypothesis, it should be pointed out that the magnitude of the correlations are small: .28 in the Pederson and Higbee (1969a) study, and .18 to .34 in the Taylor, Altman, and Frankfurt 8 study, and these authors report that an attempted replication yielded even lower correlations. Although it is difficult to identify the criteria that should be used to judge whether a
8 D. A. Taylor, I. Altman, & L. P. Frankfurt. Personality correlates of self-disclosure. Unpublished manuscript, 1965.

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PAUL C. COZBY TABLE 2 STUDIES WHICH EXAMINED SELF-DISCLOSURE AND "POSITIVE" MENTAL HEALTH
Subjects Author & date
Sex Age

Measure of mental health

n

Relationship found

Vargas (see Footnote 9) Halverson & Shore (1969) Fitzgerald (1963) Doster & Strickland (1969) Burhenne & Mirels (1970)

M M/F I'M/I'' F

Adult1
CS CS CS

CS

277 S3 300 110 56

Positive experiencing and behaving scale Conceptual complexity, interpersonal flexibility, general adaptibility Self-esteem index Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale

positive positive

ns ns ns

Nole. Abbreviations: CS = college students. " Peace Corps tiainees.

study is testing the hypothesis that disclosure is related to positive mental health (cf. Smith, 19S9), the studies listed in Table 2 seem at least somewhat appropriate. The Vargas9 study which measured self-actualization is perhaps the most appropriate. However, our confidence in such a relationship would be increased by a study relating disclosure to a more standardized measure of self-actualization such as the Personal Orientation Inventory. Is self-disclosure related to mental health? Virtually every type of relationship has been reported in the literature, yet no correlation reported has been greater than .50, and most are much lower. The curvilinear relationship suggested by Jourard (1964) seems intuitively compelling for several reasons. The individual who never discloses may be unable to establish close relationships with others. A large portion of his self may be seen as threatening and is repressed (there is evidence that repressers talk less than sensitizers Kaplan, 1967; Axtell & Cole, 1971but it is not known whether repressers are also less intimate). In contrast, the individual who characteristically discloses a great deal about himself, not just to someone close such as a parent or spouse, but to anyone, may be perceived by others as maladjusted and also unable to relate to others because of a preoccupation with his own self. The medium discloser may disclose a great deal to someR. Vargas. A study of certain personality characteristics of male college students who report frequent positive experiencing and behaving. Paper presented at the meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, New Orleans, February 1969.
9

one who is very close, and generally maintains a moderately close relationship with others (i.e., not too close to be offensive, but close enough to establish meaningful social bonds). If the relationship between selfdisclosure and mental health is actually curvilinear, there are two possible reasons for the conflicting results. First, none of the studies previously cited reported computation of a correlation ratio. Significant departures from linearity thus may have gone undetected. It is also possible that true linear relationships were obtained because of biases in the sample. A positive relationship between disclosure and mental health would be found with samples that contained no high disclosers, while a negative relationship would be found in a sample that contained no low disclosers. The author would suggest the following hypotheses: Persons with positive mental health (given that they can be identified) are characterized by high disclosure to a few significant others and medium disclosure to others in the social environment. Individuals who are poorly adjusted (again assuming a suitable identification can be made) are characterized by either high or low disclosure to virtually everyone in the social environment. Future research should help to clarify this rather confused aspect of self-disclosure. Personality Correlates of Self-Disclosure Studies which have examined personality correlates of disclosure are shown in Table 3. Like the previously cited studies on disclosure and mental health, correlations involving self-disclosure scores and various per-

SELF-DISCLOSURE TABLE 3 STUDIES WHICH EXAMINED PERSONALITY CORRELATES OF SELF-DISCLOSURE

Subjects Author & date
Sex I

79

Personality measure used

Age
n

Relationship found

Femininity Taylor, Altaian, & Frankfurt (see Footnote 8) Swensen (see Footnote 11) Pederson & Breglio (1968a) Pederson & Higbee (1969a)

M M/F M/F

17-20"

100

cs

CS

52 107

MMPI Mf Guilford-Zimmerman Guilford-Zimmerman Gough femininity Gough femininity

positive positive positive ns ns

Authoritarianism Taylor, Altman, & Frankfurt (see Footnote 8) Halverson & Shore (1969) Worthy, Gary, & Kahn (1969)

M M/F F

17-20" Adult'' CS

100 53 48

Rokeach Dogmatism F scale Rokeach Dogmatism

positive negative ns

Sociability and Extraversion Taylor, Altman, & Frankfurt (see Footnote 8)

17-20"

100

Tuckman (1966) Taylor & Oberlander (1969) Experiment 1 Swensen (see Footnote 11) Swensen (see Footnote 11) Frankfurt (see Footnote 10) Pederson & Breglio (1968a) Pederson & Higbee (1969a)

M M F M/F M/F

17-24"

299 42 60 52 107

X = 18.5"

cs.
CS

cs

Edwards Personal Preference Schedule affiliation, succorance, nurturance, heterosexuality MMPI Si Systems of integrative complexity Accuracy in a facial recognition task Maudsley Personality Inventory extraversion Guilford-Zimmerman social interestsociability, ascendance social boldness Guilford-Zimmerman sociability, thoughtfulness, personal relations Pederson Personality Inventory extraversion scale Pederson Personality Inventory extraversion scale

positive po

ne negative po po po po ns ns ns

College achievement Powell & Jourard (1963) Jourard (1961d)

M/F
F

CS CS

80 23

Grades .Grades in nursing courses Grades in nonnursing courses

ns positive ns

Interpersonal trust Vondracek & Marshall (1971)

M/F

CS

106

Rotter Interpersonal Trust scale

ns

Note.. Abbreviations: CS = college students. Naval recruits. b Peace Corps trainees.

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PAUL C. COZBY

sonality measures have been generally low and often contradictory. The pattern of results involving measures of sociability and extraversion do seem consistent, and perhaps one may have confidence in a positive relationship between disclosure and extraversion. However, the studies by Frankfurt 10 and Pederson and his associates are somewhat contradictory. It is clear that the personality characteristics associated with self-disclosure are not well understood. Altman and Taylor (1973) feel that it is unrealistic to expect to find specific trait-disclosure relationships. Their approach is to explore the relationship between personality and self-disclosure in the context of specific relationships and settings, and is considered below. It is also likely that the use of the JSDQ is a factor in the generally low correlations between disclosure and various personality traits (including mental health). It was previously mentioned that the JSDQ does not appear to predict actual disclosure to others. The JSDQ may be best interpreted as a measure of past history of disclosure. Some evidence of the subject's present disposition to disclose may be inferred from the subject's reports of disclosure to friends. Swensen" has reported that the highest personality trait-JSDQ correlations involve peers as target persons. Perhaps a more sensitive measure of disposition to disclose would be subjects' willingness to disclose to an acquaintance, a stranger, or the experimenter. The relationship between disclosure and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS) is an example of the problems associated with the use of the JSDQ. Doster and Strickland (1969) found no relationship between the JSDQ and SDS. However, Burhenne and Mirels (1970) noted that the social-desirability-approval motive should be related to self-disclosure since high-SDS
10 L. P. Frankfurt. The role of some individual and interpersonal factors on the acquaintance process. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, American University, 1965. 1 1 C. H. Swensen. Self-disclosure as a function of personality variables. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, September 1968.

subjects protect their vulnerable self-esteem by being conforming, submissive, conventional, and generally self-protective. Burhenne and Mirels rated the disclosure of subjects' written self-disclosure and found a correlation of .41 (p < .01) between disclosure and the SDS, while the JSDQ correlated only -.03 with the SDS. It must be concluded that continued use of the JSDQ will only perpetuate the confusion that already exists in the literature. Alternate methods of measuring self-disclosure include written self-descriptions, and Jourard's (1969) previously discussed questionnaire since there is evidence for the predictive validity of this measure. The author, however, feels that it would be a mistake to continue the collection of correlations between personality trait measures and self-disclosure questionnaires. Instead, selfdisclosure should be measured behaviorally and used as the dependent variable. An example of this type of procedure is provided by a study by Axtell and Cole (1971), who classified subjects as repressers, sensitizers, or neutrals, and measured the amount of time subjects spent discussing either positive or negative aspects of themselves. It should be expected that any study using such a procedure would yield results which would be considerably less equivocal than studies employing any of the poorly developed selfdisclosure questionnaires. The procedure would also allow the introduction of situational variables into the design, and the development of better questionnaires by administering the measure to subjects and correlating scores with subjects' actual disclosure. SELF-DISCLOSURE IN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS Social Exchange and Penetration Processes In this section, the role of self-disclosure in interpersonal relationships is considered. Self-disclosure is placed within the context of social exchange and social penetration theory. According to social penetration theory (Altman & Taylor, 1973; Taylor, Altman, & Sorrentino, 1969), "the growth of an interpersonal relationship is hypothesized to be a

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81

joint result of interpersonal reward/cost factors, personality characteristics, and situational determinants [Taylor et al., 1969, p. 325]." Relationships proceed from nonintimate to intimate areas of exchange. The rate and amount of movement from nonintimate to intimate areas of exchange (which includes verbal disclosure, type of activities engaged in, and nonverbal communication) is determined by reward/cost factors of past, present, and projected future exchanges. Social penetration theory emphasizes reward/cost factors, and is thus similar to social exchange theory (e.g., Homans, 1961; Thibaut & Kelly, 19S9). The time dimension emphasized by social penetration theory is not crucial in social exchange formulations, and social penetration theory is unique in its emphasis on the joint effects of verbal and nonverbal communication in the acquaintance process. Reciprocity of Self-Disclosure Jourard (1959b) measured self-disclosure within a group of nine female nursing college faculty members. The amount disclosed to a given colleague correlated highly with the amount of disclosure received from that colleague. Jourard and Landsman (1960) replicated the above finding in a group of nine male graduate students. Further evidence for the reciprocity effect was obtained by Jourard and Richman (1963) who correlated subjects' reports of disclosure output and input (disclosures received) for mother, father, best male friend, and best female friend. Other researchers have extended the investigation of reciprocity to different relationships and types of subjects. Levinger and Senn (1967) studied reciprocity of disclosure of feelings in marital relationships. The correlation between reported output and reported input was .91 for husbands and .79 for wives. Levinger and Senn point out that (like the Jourard and Richman, 1963, study) the input and output scores were obtained from the same person, and are probably artificially high. Correlations between husband output or input and wife output or input were considerably lower, averaging about .50.

Skypeck12 and Rivenbark (1971) report high correlations between reported output and input in samples of subjects ranging from 6 to 18 years of age. Several experiments have confronted subjects with a confederate who discloses at either high or low levels. Regardless of whether disclosure was manipulated by varying intimacy (Ehrlich & Graeven, 1971; Murdoch, Chenowith, & Rissman 13 ), or number of statements disclosed (Chittick & Himelstein, 1967), these studies have found that the high-disclosing confederate elicits greater self-disclosure from subjects than the low-disclosing confederate. One potential criticism of these studies is that the subject may be imitating the response of the confederate rather than engaging in a reciprocation process. However, Tognoli (1969) did not allow subjects to imitate by eliminating the confederate's statement as an option for the subject's response, and still obtained evidence for reciprocity of disclosure. Levin and Gergen (1969) suggested that medium amounts of disclosure from another person indicate his desire for a closer relationship and his trustfulness, yet another who communicates a great deal about himself may be seen to lack discretion and to be untrustworthy, and predicted a curvilinear relationship between other disclosure and subject disclosure. Subjects received a 40item self-rating form from a partner on which either 4, 16, or 32 items were checked. Rather than finding a curvilinear relationship, subjects revealed a mean total of 10.5, 17.2, and 22.0 items in the low, moderate, and high groups, respectively. Levin and Gergen (1969) concluded that "the more information revealed by the other, the greater the absolute amount returned. On the other hand, in economic terms, the subjects reveal propor12 G. Skypeck. Self-disclosure in children, ages six through twelve. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Florida, 1967. 13 P. Murdoch, R. Chenowith, & K. Rissman. Eligibility and intimacy effects on self-disclosure. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, Madison, Wisconsin, October 31-Nov. 1, 1909.

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tionately less as the partner reveals more and more [p. 448]." Worthy, Gary, and Kahn (1969) suggested that reception of self-disclosing information from another is rewarding since reception of such information implies that one is trusted, and that more intimate information represents greater reward for the receiver. Worthy et al. tested several predictions derived from social exchange theory, among them the principle that outcomes exchanged will be of comparable value. Female subjects were tested in groups of four. On each of 10 trials, each subject chose questions to answer and send to each of the three other subjects. The questions had been prescaled for intimacy value. Support was obtained for the reciprocity hypothesis: The mean levels of disclosure (on a 7-point scale) to the other who had disclosed least, next, and most were 2.997, 3.316, and 4.041, respectively. Cozby (1972) attempted to extend the social exchange theory analysis of Worthy et al. (1969). Cozby argued that, while increasing intimacy of disclosure may represent increasing reward, various costs become salient at high intimacy levels, the most obvious being anxiety over revealing information one would rather keep private, and having to interact with an individual who is behaving in a somewhat unusual manner. This analysis is supported by Argyle and Kendon's (1967) description of increasing intimacy in interpersonal relationships until halted by anxiety. Subjects were shown 10 topics which a hypothetical other had disclosed. These were low, medium, or high in intimacy value. They then chose 10 out of 70 items to disclose to the other. It was predicted that reciprocity would determine subjects' responses to the low- and medium-disclosing other, but that intimacy level would not increase (or possibly decrease) as other disclosure increased from medium to high intimacy. The results represent an independent replication of the Levin and Gergen (1969) experiment: A small (but significant at the .05 level) increase was observed as other disclosure increased from medium to high intimacy. Reciprocity appears to become less powerful as a determinant of subjects' responses

at high levels of intimacy, but there is as yet no explanation for the counterintuitive results obtained by Levin and Gergen, and Cozby. It is possible that making selfdisclosures is rewarding for the person who is disclosing, and the laboratory setting is a particularly likely place for this to occur. In other words, the reward effect may tend to outweigh the anxiety discussed previously in a laboratory setting in which subjects do not see each other, and there is little likelihood of future interactions. The Murdoch et al. (see Footnote 13) experiment is relevant to this discussion. Murdoch et al. varied whether or not there was a possibility of future interaction with the confederate. Subjects disclosed more to the confederate with whom there was no possibility of future interactions. It is possible that the curvilinear effect would be obtained in a situation in which there was a possibility of future interaction with the other, or possibly if subject anonymity was precluded by previous encounter between the subject and confederate. Self-Disclosure and Liking Jourard and Lasakow (1958) found that disclosure to mother and father correlated significantly with liking (r .63 and .53, respectively). In a subsequent investigation, Jourard (1959b) had each of nine female nursing college faculty members order the other eight subjects in terms of liking, and found disclosure positively related to liking; Jourard and Landsman (1960) replicated the Jourard (1959b) procedure with a group of nine male graduate students. The relationship between disclosure and liking was not obtained with this male sample. Jourard and Landsman (1960) concluded that their results, along with the findings of Jourard (1959b), corroborate the "statements abounding in the popular literature which portray men as strong and silent and distrustful of feelings; women are commonly portrayed as more emotional, talkative, overly trusting of those whom they like, and hence more vulnerable to betrayal than men [p. 185]." Alternatively, it is possible that the male group was a much less cohesive group, with fewer interaction experiences across the 36 relationships than the nursing faculty group.

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Other questionnaire studies finding a rela- studies except Cozby (1972) which used a tionship between disclosure and liking in- role-playing procedure, subjects received from clude Halverson and Shore (1969), Fitzgerald another content about a topic which varied (1963), and Altaian and Haythorn (196S). in intimacy value. To illustrate, the topic, Frankfurt (see Footnote 10) had female "favorite television program," is low in intisubjects indicate what they would disclose macy value. In an actual interaction, this to another girl described as being liked or topic becomes a statement such as "My disliked in a series of scenarios which repre- favorite television program is Mod Squad." sented successive stages in the relationship. The problem becomes obvious: Is the subMore was disclosed to the liked than dis- ject's liking rating due to the intimacy value liked girl, and the effect occurred only in of the topic or his own feelings about that particular program? The variables of topic intimate topic areas. Worthy et al. (1969) predicted that liking intimacy and similarity-dissimilarity of the leads to disclosure to the other, and also content should be combined factorially. From that disclosure from another will lead to the Cozby (1972) study and the work of greater liking, Subjects, in groups of four, Byrne (1969), it might be expected that the had a 10-niinute "get acquainted" session, most liked other would be one who disclosed and then indicated their liking for the other topics of medium intimacy and expressed subjects. In the actual experiment, each sub- views that were similar to those of the subject. Pederson and Higbee (1969b) noted that ject chose items of information to disclose to each other subject on each of 10 trials. On the Jourard and Landsman (1960) findings the first trial, it was found that most was might indicate that the characteristics of the disclosed to the most liked other, and least target person that determine disclosure may was disclosed to the least liked other. In vary from one target person to another. Pederaddition, analysis of covariance of final son and Higbee correlated disclosure scores liking scores with initial liking covaried for mother, father, best opposite-sex friend showed that subjects liked most those others and best same-sex friend with ratings of these targets on 11 adjectives. For both males and who had disclosed most to them. Cozby (1972) suggested that the relation- females, liking was significantly related to ship between self-disclosure and liking is disclosure only for father and opposite-sex curvilinear. The high-disclosing other may friend. For each target, there were sex difarouse anxiety with his overly intimate dis- ferences in the adjectives that were related closures, and so the high discloser may be to self-disclosure. Interestingly, for both seen as providing the subject with negative sexes, few characteristics of the same sex outcomes. Strong support for the predicted friend were related to disclosure to the curvilinear relationship was obtained in a friend. Rubin (1970) has recently provided dissituation in which subjects were responding tinctions between liking and loving relationto a hypothetical other. The Worthy et al. and Cozby studies used ships. Although Rubin's (1970) love and female subjects. A study by Ehrlich and liking scales have not been correlated with Graeven (1971) used male subjects who con- self-disclosure, there are indications that the versed for 16 minutes with a male confederate distinction may prove useful in the study of who disclosed at either low- or high-intimacy self-disclosure. For instance, Rubin (1970) values. There were no differences in rated found that females love (but not like) their liking of the confederate in the two condi- same-sex friends more than males do, which tions. This finding may support Jourard and provides a reason for the finding that women Landsman's (1960) suggestion that the rela- tend to disclose to their same-sex friends more tionship between disclosure and liking may than males do (Jourard & Lasakow, 1958). The finding that disclosure to spouse is be different for males and females. However, interpretation of liking ratings is made dif- greater than to any other target (Jourard & ficult by a heretofore unmentioned aspect of Lasakow, 19S8) suggests that love results in these disclosure studiescontent. In all the greater disclosure than liking. Within the

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marital relationship itself, it might be expected that self-disclosure would be related to marital satisfaction. However, empirical support for such a relationship is weak. Katz et al. (1963) report that, for males, marital satisfaction is related to greater disclosures of anxieties and worries, but not of other topics. No relationship was found for wives. Levinger and Senn (1967) found that, in general, disclosure tends to be related to satisfaction, but that the correlation is higher between satisfaction and disclosure of pleasant feelings, contrary to the expectation that a strong marital bond would be characterized by the ability to openly discuss unpleasant feelings. However, this finding would be expected if we assume that the disclosure of pleasant feelings is equivalent to exchanging positive rewards. Shapiro and Swensen (1969) found no relationship between marital satisfaction and disclosure. Social Approval In an experiment by Colson" a confederate responded to subjects' disclosures with positive, neutral, or negative evaluations. Disclosure was greatest in the positive evaluation condition and lowest in the negative evaluation condition. In an experiment by Taylor et al. (1969), a confederate responded to subjects' disclosures in four 45-minute interaction sessions according to one of four reinforcement schedules: (a) continuous positive, (b) early negative, later positive, (c) continuous negative, or (d) early positive, later negative. As predicted, subjects in the continuous and later positive reinforcement conditions disclosed more about themselves, talked longer, and were generally more intimate. For duration and amount of disclosure, the differences were primarily at intimate areas of exchange. No contrast effect for disclosure or liking of the confederate was found in the later positive and later negative groups. Dependency and Self-Disclosure Altman and Haythorn (196S) investigated the self-disclosure patterns of pairs of naval
14 W. N. Colson. Self-disclosure as a function of social approval. Unpublished master's thesis, Howard University, 1968.

recruits who were isolated in a small room for 10 days (high mutual dependency). A control condition consisted of pairs who spent most of their waking hours together, but had access to the outside world (low mutual dependency). The high-dependency dyads were more intimate and showed a more active pattern of social interaction than did the lowdependency dyads. Thibaut and Kelly (1959) suggested that the formality and constraint which characterizes first encounters functions to prevent forming relationships that may prove unsatisfying in the future. A total lack of dependency, as with interaction with a stranger with whom there is little likelihood of future interaction, removes the constraints and causes increased disclosure. Experimental support for the "stranger on a train" phenomenon had been demonstrated by Murdoch et al. (see Footnote 13). Taylor et al. (1969) obtained no effect of a 3 week versus 6 month interaction expectancy, suggesting that greater disclosure to a "stranger" may occur only when the expected interaction period is very brief. There is also evidence that individuals will resist entering into relationships in which the other person holds a great deal of power. Kounin, Polansky, Biddle, Coburn, and Fenn (19S6) found that persons feel more at ease and reveal more negative things about themselves with a nonpowerful counselor. However, under some circumstances, people may disclose more to a person with high power than to a person with low power. Slobin, Miller, and Porter (1968) found that, while greatest disclosure is made to fellow workers in a business organization, there is greater disclosure to immediate superiors than to immediate subordinates. Perhaps disclosure to superiors is an ingratiation technique. Disclosure as a Function of Personality of the Interactants Social penetration theory asserts that amount of mutual disclosure in a dyad is a function of the particular personality characteristics of the two individuals. The obvious prediction that pairs of high disclosers will disclose more to one another than pairs of low disclosers has been confirmed in several

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studies (Jourard & Resnick, 1970; Taylor, 1968). Jourard and Resnick also found that when a low-disclosing subject is paired with a high discloser, the subject increases his disclosure output to match the level of the high discloser. Pairs of subjects in a study by Altman and Haythorn (196S) were either homogeneously high, heterogeneous, or homogeneously low on need achievement, need affiliation, need dominance, and dogmatism. Although there were no significant effects of group composition on self-disclosure, perhaps due to small N, high need achievers disclosed more than low achievers, and low-dominance subjects disclosed more than high-dominance subjects in intimate topic areas while the opposite was true in nonintimate topic areas. Swensen and Nelson16 studied disclosure in dyads matched for similarity and dissimilarity in extraversion, neuroticism, and attitudes. Disclosure was highest in male pairs who were similar on extraversion but different on neuroticism, in female pairs who were different on attitudes, and in male-female pairs who were similar on all three variables. Persons and Marks (1970) found that greatest intimacy occurred in an interview situation when both interviewer and interviewee has the same MMPI code type (4-2, 4-8, or 4-9) than when they were paired in nonmatched combinations.

over time. Measures of liking showed no significant differences between the low- and highrevealing dyads. However, both groups showed a significant decrement in liking over time, and this trend was more pronounced among the high revealers. This decrement in liking with a concomitant increase in disclosure may mean that "familiarity breeds contempt," but it may also indicate that most randomly chosen dyads are not compatible enough to be comfortable at prolonged high disclosure. Frankfurt (see Footnote 10) obtained evidence of increasing amount and intimacy of disclosure as subjects described what they would disclose to another person at successive stages in their relationship. A large increase in number of intimate topics discussed was found for subjects who liked the other person, while subjects who did not like the other person showed only a slight increase. In the Taylor et al. (1969) study, favorable reward/cost groups showed a greater increase in duration of time talked over four 45-minute interaction periods than did negative reward/cost groups, and the effect occurred primarily in intimate areas of exchange. Contrary to expectations, greatest intimacy occurred during the first period of interaction, although a gradual increase from second to fourth period was found for all groups combined. Methodological problems make research on the developmental aspects of interpersonal Self-Disclosure over Time relationships especially difficult. Observation Taylor (1968) administered a self-disclo- of behavior over a long period of time in the sure questionnaire to male freshmen room- laboratory, as in the Taylor et al. (1969) mates after they had known each other for study, may provide insights into the develop1, 3, 6, 9, and 13 weeks. Half of the room- mental process, but it seems inevitable that mate pairs were both high revealers, while factors such as fatigue will affect the results. the other half were both low revealers. At all An alternative approach might be to study points in time, the high-revealing dyads re- people who have known each other for varyported more mutual disclosure than did the ing lengths of time. For instance, Jourard low-revealing dyads, although the rate of the (1961a) administered the JSDQ to college increase over time was approximately the students ranging in age from 17 to 55 years. same for both groups. There was a rapid It was found that disclosure to parents deincrease in nonintimate disclosures, and a creased with age, while disclosure to oppositeslow, gradual increase in intimate disclosures sex friend or spouse increased up to age 40, after which a decrease was observed. A prob16 C. H. Swensen, & D. A. Nelson. Interpersonal attraction as a function of personality and attitudes. lem with the Jourard study is that not all Paper presented at the meeting of the Midwestern subjects were married, and the effect of Psychological Association, Chicago 1967. length of marriage is confounded with age,

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but the study does illustrate the type of approach that might be taken. DISCLOSURE IN THERAPY AND EXPERIMENTS While the research reviewed in this section could have been placed within the context of "interpersonal relationships," the experimenter-subject or therapist-client relationship would seem to merit special consideration. The therapist, interviewer, and experimenter, whether it be for the person's own benefit or for scientific reasons, seeks information about another person's private self. The studies reviewed in this section indicate that the effects of therapist or experimenter disclosure may have a number of practical and methodological implications for therapy outcome and experimental results. Several authors (Jourard, 1964, 1968; Mowrer, 1964; Rogers, 1961) have written on the importance of full client disclosure for successful therapy. Truax and Carkhuff (196S) have reported significant correlations between therapist and patient disclosure. Further, level of patient disclosure appears to be a predictor of final case outcome (Truax & Carkhuff, 1965). Powell (1968) found that subjects disclosed more when the interviewer responded to subjects' self-references with open disclosure than when he used approval-supportive or reflection-restatement techniques. However, Vondracek (1969) reported greater amounts of disclosure when the interviewer used a "probing" technique than when he was "reflecting" or "revealing." It is possible that "probing" is more effective than selfrevelation in eliciting highly intimate information (Tuckman, 1966). Jourard and Jaffee (1970) found that increases in the duration of interviewer disclosure prior to discussing a topic resulted in increases in duration of subject disclosure on the topic. Vondracek and Vondracek (1971) have shown that sixth-grade children disclose more to an adult interviewer who discloses than to an interviewer who does not disclose. There was also evidence that the increased disclosure was in the same content area dis-

closed by the interviewer. Ehrlich and Graeven (1971) did not find evidence of topical reciprocity in their male college student sample. Future research should determine the conditions under which topical reciprocity will occur. The interviewer or experimenter who discloses, in addition to eliciting greater disclosure from subjects (i.e., inducing a reciprocity effect), is rated as more trustworthy (Drag, see Footnote 3) and more positively in general (Jourard & Friedman, 1970) than the experimenter who does not self-disclose. Objections to the use of therapist disclosure to increase patient disclosure have been raised by Vondracek and Vondracek (1971) and Polansky (1967) who states that the technique is clinically very sloppy. Although these authors do not elaborate on their objections, perhaps they feel that disclosure to certain patients would have an adverse effect on the course of therapy, or that certain therapists would feel uncomfortable disclosing and communicate the discomfort to the patient. Disclosure may also affect the nature of subjects' responses in experiments. In general, studies which manipulate experimenter disclosure involve a period of experimentersubject interaction of approximately 30 minutes in duration in which the experimenter and subject discuss their "personal backgrounds and interests, problems, and hopes and aspirations [Jourard, 1969, p. 113]." Control subjects have no prior contact with the experimenter. Subjects who receive experimenter disclosure have been shown to change their Edwards Personal Preference Schedule responses (Jourard & Kormann, 1968), give more revealing responses on the Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (Heifitz 10 ), and require fewer trials to criterion on a paired-associate learning task (Frey 17 ).
10 M. L. Heifitz. Experimenter effect upon openness of response to the Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank. Unpublished honors paper, University of Florida, 1967. 17 M. Frey. The effects of self-disclosure and social reinforcement on performance in paired-associate learning. Unpublished honors paper, Univcrsily of Florida, 196S.

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Drag (1969) studies the effect of experimenter participation in discussion groups composed of two, four, or eight subjects whose task was to disclose themselves on various topics. In groups in which the experimenter did not disclose, Drag (1969) replicated the common finding that smaller groups provide the participants more opportunity to interact or express themselves (Thomas & Fink, 1963). When the experimenter joined in the discussion and self-disclosed, amount of subject disclosure was not affected in the two- or eight-person groups. However, in the four-person group, subject disclosure was similar to disclosure scores in the two-person group, and significantly greater than in the four-person-no-experimenter-disclosure group. This result was not expected, for it had been predicted that amount of disclosure would increase by equal amounts in all three groups when the experimenter disclosed. The finding would seem to indicate that in the eightperson group, experimenter disclosure (or probably disclosure by any group member) is not sufficient to overcome the inhibiting effects of the large group. Jourard (1969) has argued that disclosure by experimenters will result in greater honesty by subjects, and also prevent experimenters from acting like "spies" and inhuman manipulators. An equity theory (Adams, 1965) analysis would suggest that the experimenter who asks subjects to fill out questionnaires, yet who tells nothing of himself, may have created a situation of inequity. If this is actually the case, subjects may attempt to restore equity by lying, or being careless in their responses (see Weick, 1970). The equity theory analysis rests upon the assumption that subjects perceive inequity in the situation. It is possible, however, that the subject actually expects to disclose in the experimental situation, and that the opportunity to disclose is a major reason for coming to the experiment (Hood & Back, 1971). Hood and Back found that, among males, volunteers for social psychological experiments are higher disclosers than nonvolunteers. Among females, JSDQ scores were related to volunteering only for experiments which seemed to indicate that subjects

would be required to make statements about themselves. Future research should determine the conditions under which experimenter or subject disclosure will affect experimental results, and the nature of the effects themselves. One possibility that deserves investigation is whether disclosure by the experimenter has the effect of making subjects more sensitive to demand characteristics (Orne, 1962) or experimenter biases (Rosenthal, 1966). If so, we can imagine subjects giving dishonest responses in order to try to please the experimenter and confirm his hypotheses. Future research in this area should also include controls for amount of time the experimenter spends with the subject (i.e., a separate condition with very nonintimate disclosure). SELF-DISCLOSURE AND OTHER "INTIMACY" VARIABLES The affiliative conflict theory (Argyle & Dean, 1965) asserts that an equilibrium for "intimacy" exists for any pair of individuals, and that the equilibrium point is a joint function of eye contact, physical proximity, amount of smiling, intimacy of topic (i.e., self-disclosure), and other unspecified variables. The theory states that if the equilibrium is disturbed along any one of its dimensions, attempts will be made to restore it by adjusting the others. A study by Exline, Gray, and Schutte (1965) found support for the theory in an experiment which related eye-contact to intimacy of interview material. Subjects spent significantly less time looking at the interviewer in an intimate interview condition than in a nonintimate interview. Jourard and Friedman (1970) examined the relationship between experimenter-subject "distance" and self-disclosure. In Experiment 1, females (but not males) increased duration of disclosure as distance increased, thus providing partial support for the theory. Distance in this study was varied by using a combination of eye contact and physical distance. In Experiment 2, distance was varied by a combination of the experimenter touching and/or disclosing to the subject. Regardless of sex, subjects increased disclosure time as distance decreased. The authors concluded

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that the Argyle and Dean equilibrium phenomenon will not be obtained in situations in which there is trust and positive feelings toward the person who comes close. However, the use of self-disclosure as both independent and dependent variable neglects the multivariate nature of the Argyle and Dean theory, and leads to the suggestion that the results of Jourard and Friedman's second experiment do little more than provide additional confirmation of the reciprocity rule in self-disclosure. Regardless of the validity of the Argyle and Dean (1965) theory, it is obvious that people do engage in nonverbal communication, vary their speaking distance, and use objects in the physical environment while communicating verbally. Altman and Taylor (1973) point out that research on nonverbal, environmental, and verbal behaviors has proceeded in parallel fashion, but that no attempt has been made to integrate the behaviors into a rich description of interpersonal relationships. CONCLUSION Simmel (1964) writes that "obviously, all relations which people have to one another are based on their knowing something about one another [p. 307]." This statement seems so intuitively obvious that it is surprising that there is not more research or theoretical development in the area of self-disclosure. It also seems obvious that there are individual differences in self-disclosure, yet we know little about the meaning of these differences. Self-disclosing behavior may be seen as the product of two opposing forces, one operating to increase disclosure, the other operating to inhibit disclosure. The first force is the one studied most extensively by disclosure researchers. There are also factors which operate to inhibit disclosure. These might be termed discretion, or a need for privacy, and have been neglected in research on self-disclosure. Rather, self-disclosure has been closely associated with the encounter group movement which emphasizes the need to relate, communicate, and be honest and open with others. Self-disclosure has thus been made a positive value, something to be

fostered. This orientation to self-disclosure has been expressed by Bennett (1967):

The critical problem we face is not how to keep secrets from each other, but how to facilitate this readiness to communicate. The overriding question is how to maintain an atmosphere of trust and confidence which will enable us to talk about personal affairs as freely as we talk about automobiles; to share experience as we share the weather [p. 37S].

What happens to privacy when we share our intimate thoughts as easily as we talk about the weather? Bennett classifies people who would withhold information as hermits, prudes, paranoids, or rascals. Yet Altman and Taylor (1973) have expressed fear of a "tyranny of openness" in which individuals have no freedom to have private thoughts because full disclosure is demanded by others in all social encounters. Simmel (1964) has written extensively on the importance of discretion, and suggests that "an ideal sphere lies around every human being . . . this sphere cannot be penetrated, unless the personality value of the individual is thereby destroyed [p. 321]." Thus, selfconcealment (not lying or misrepresenting one's self, but maintaining a private area of the self) may have functional significance in giving a person a sense of "individuality." Simmel (1964) also suggests that some marital difficulties are the result of too much self-disclosure: "They lapse into a matter-offactness which has no longer any room for surprises [p. 329]." Thus, discretion may be important in preventing boredom from occurring in interpersonal relationships. It is hoped that the peculiar value orientation that has accompanied much of the written discussion of self-disclosure can be dispensed with. It seems far more important that the research be conducted. We should know more about the relationship between verbal and nonverbal components of messages (Duncan, 1969). We can ask about the nature of self-disclosure when people withdraw from a relationship (Altman & Taylor, 1973). What is the function of privacy in interpersonal relationships? What are the consequences of unrestrained self-disclosure? So much remains to be learned about this important aspect of interpersonal relation-

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ships that value-laden speculations that close off areas of investigation can only be seen as a hinderance to our understanding of self-disclosure.
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