The Communication of Self-Disclosure: Level Versus Valence¹

While assuming that another’s level of self-disclosure, i.e., communication of intimacy, can be rewarding, it was hypothesized that the degree of intimacy of disclosure would be less powerful in affecting a recipient’s attraction for a discloser than the positiveness or negativeness (valence) of disclosure. An experiment examined the effects of a male confederate’s self-disclosure (high or low degree of intimacy) on a recipient where the valence (positive or negative) of disclosure also varied. The 80 male and female subjects were assigned to one of four experimental conditions in a factorial design. It was found that recipients of disclosure demonstrated the greatest degree of attraction for the confederate when the content of the disclosure script was positive, regardless of the degree of intimacy of the disclosure.