The Basis of Interviewee Matching of Interviewer Self‐disclosure

The second author interviewed 16 male and 16 female undergraduates, inviting them to disclose information about themselves on a series of 10 high‐intimacy topics presented in an individually randomized order. Subjects were assigned to one of four treatments defined by the possible combinations, over two five‐topic blocks, of disclosure or non‐disclosure on the part of the interviewer. (Interviewer disclosure on a topic immediately preceded the corresponding disclosure by a subject.) Two judges (one of whom was the second author) independently rated audiotape recordings of interviewees' presentations for disclosure and modelling of content. Interviewee disclosure was strongly facilitated by disclosure on the part of the interviewer, but was sustained at a high level only if the interviewer continued to disclose. Deep disclosures by interviewees showed somewhat greater originality of content than more shallow disclosures. These results suggested that the facilitating effect of the interviewer's disclosure was best interpreted in terms of social exchange theory rather than in response disinhibition or discriminative cueing terms. However, subjects showed no clear preference for a disclosing interviewer. For given levels of interviewer disclosure their interview reactions were less favourable the more they had disclosed, suggesting that the ‘dispensation’ of self‐disclosure was costly. Sensitizing subjects were apt to disclose more than repressing subjects and to have less favourable interview reactions.