A friend is a present you give to your “Self”: Avoidance of intimacy moderates the effects of friends on self-liking

The current research proposes that thinking about friends improves feelings about the self and does so differentially depending on avoidance of intimacy. Based on previous findings that individuals who avoid intimacy in relationships (avoidant individuals) contrast their self-concepts with primed friends whereas those who pursue intimacy in relationships (non-avoidant individuals) assimilate their self-concepts to primed friends [Gabriel, S., Carvallo, M., Dean, K., Tippin, B. D., & Renaud, J. (2005). How I see “Me” depends on how I see “We”: The role of avoidance of intimacy in social comparison. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 156-157], we predicted that friends who embody negative aspects of self would lead avoidant individuals to like themselves more, whereas friends who embody positive aspects of self would lead non-avoidant individuals to like themselves more. A pretest determined that good friends were seen as more similar to positive and ideal aspects of the self, whereas friends about whom participants had more mixed feelings (ambivalent friends) were seen as more similar to disliked and feared aspects of the self. Four experiments supported the main hypotheses. In Experiment 1, non-avoidant individuals like themselves more when good friends were primed. In Experiment 2, avoidant individuals like themselves more when ambivalent friends were primed. In Experiment 3, non-avoidant individuals liked themselves better after thinking about a friend’s positive traits, whereas avoidant individuals liked themselves better after thinking about a friend’s negative traits. In Experiment 4, all individuals under self-esteem threat strategically brought friends to mind who would help them like themselves more.     

Mothers’ and Fathers’ Reluctance to Seek Psychological Help for Their Children

We investigated the gap between parents’ willingness to seek help for their children and their willingness to refer other parents to help, and the relationship of this gap to gender. Two hundred and eleven parent couples with elementary-school children reported their willingness to seek help from professional and informal sources for a hypothetical problem with their child, and their willingness to refer a friend’s child with an identical problem to similar help. Attitudes toward help seeking and parental behaviors were also measured. Findings revealed that parents were more willing to refer a friend’s child to professional help than they were to seek such help for their own child, although no gap was found regarding informal help. No gender differences were found regarding willingness to seek help or to refer another, although gender was related to variables that predicted help seeking.     

Differences in Engaging in Sexual Disclosure Between Real Life and Cyberspace Among Adolescents: Social Penetration Model Revisited

To date, relatively few studies have begun to explore adolescents’ sexual self-disclosure in cyberspace. Rare research has taken a close look at differences in adolescents’ sexual self-disclosure occurring in real life and cyberspace. The social penetration model suggests that an individual’s level of sexual disclosure should be in accordance with relationship intimacy in real life. The current study investigated whether the effects of relationship intimacy on adolescents’ willingness to disclose sexual history differ in terms of sex and communication environment (real life vs. cyberspace). A total of 419 Taiwanese adolescents completed a survey about their willingness to communicate on different sexual topics in the contexts of varying levels of relationship intimacy. The results showed that in real life both male and female adolescents showed a parallel relationship between willingness to engage in sexual disclosure and relationship intimacy, supporting predictions according to the social penetration model. However, in cyberspace, male adolescents exhibited a greater willingness to communicate, regardless of degree of relationship intimacy, whereas females revealed a U-shape trend regarding the effect of relationship intimacy on willingness to communicate. These findings indicate that sexual disclosure on the part of adolescents in cyberspace departs from the perspective of the social penetration model.     

Adolescents' reply intent for sexual disclosure in cyberspace: gender differences and effects of anonymity and topic intimacy.

This study examined the effects of anonymity and topic intimacy on adolescents' reply intent for cyber partners' sexual disclosure on the Internet. Two hundred thirty-seven Taiwanese adolescents with sexual self-disclosure experiences on the Internet participated in an experimental study. Regardless of anonymity and topic intimacy, male adolescents were more willing than females to respond to cyber friends' sexual disclosure. The higher the anonymity was, the higher the reply intent for sexual self-disclosure. Participants exhibited higher reply intent when cyber friends self-disclosed sexual topics with higher intimacy. However, the effect of topic intimacy was moderated by anonymity. Topic intimacy displayed prominent influence on adolescents' reply intent in responding to cyber friends' sexual disclosure only when their disclosing condition was under moderate and high anonymity. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

Parents' disclosure of their own concerns to their adolescent children

This study examines middle-aged parents' disclosure about their own lives and current concerns, with their late-adolescent children. Three hundred seventy-two parents of college freshmen, averaging 47 years of age, participated by filling out an anonymous questionnaire that asked about 28 topics, varying in intimacy, of concern to adults. The subjects indicated whether they had discussed each topic with their child, and, if they had, the motivations that prompted them to do so. The data revealed that mothers disclosed more than did fathers, and they were more likely to cite “venting,”“asking advice,” and “seeking emotional support” as reasons for disclosure; fathers were more likely to cite “trying to change his/her behavior” as a rationale for disclosure. Child's gender did not affect disclosure rates, but sons and daughters were disclosed to for different reasons. Divorced parents disclosed more than did parents from continuously intact families, and they cited somewhat different reasons for disclosure.     

Predictors of intimacy in couples' discussions of relationship injuries: an observational study.

The interpersonal process model of intimacy (H. T. Reis & P. Shaver, 1988) proposes that self-disclosure and empathic responding form the basis of intimate interactions. This study examined this model in 102 community couples who completed intimacy measures following videotaped discussions about relationship injuries occurring both within and outside the relationship. Observational assessments of self-disclosure and empathic responding, as well as their respective components, were related to self-reported ratings of post-interaction intimacy. Men's own disclosure and empathic responding predicted their feelings of intimacy, whereas women's intimacy was predicted by their partner's disclosure and empathic responding. Self-disclosure and empathic responding appear to be important behavioral determinants of intimate feelings, but the manner in which they influence intimacy differs according to gender.     

Women's and men's willingness to self-disclose to therapists and friends: The moderating influence of instrumental,expressive, masculine,and feminine topics

The present study used the Masculine and Feminine Self-Disclosure Scale to investigate women's and men's willingness to self-disclose about the instrumental, expressive, masculine, and feminine aspects of themselves to four target persons: female and male therapists and friends. The data revealed that women's and men's willingness to self-disclose to therapists and friends was tempered by the gender of the target person and the particular “masculine” and “feminine” content of the disclosure topic. Men were more willing than women to discuss the global masculine aspects of themselves with a male friend. In contrast, women were more willing than men to discuss (1) their expressive behaviors with both female and male friends and (2) their global feminity with female and male therapists and friends. The discussion emphasizes gender role phenomena as an important dimension of women's and men's willingness to disclose personal information about their masculinity and femininity to therapists and friends.     

Friends’ Knowledge of Youth Internalizing and Externalizing Adjustment: Accuracy,Bias, and the Influences of Gender,Grade, Positive Friendship Quality,and Self-Disclosure

Some evidence suggests that close friends may be knowledgeable of youth’s psychological adjustment. However, friends are understudied as reporters of adjustment. The current study examines associations between self- and friend-reports of internalizing and externalizing adjustment in a community sample of fifth-, eighth-, and eleventh-grade youth. The study extends prior work by considering the degree to which friends’ reports of youth adjustment are accurate (i.e., predicted by youths’ actual adjustment) versus biased (i.e., predicted by the friend reporters’ own adjustment). Findings indicated stronger bias effects than accuracy effects, but the accuracy effects were significant for both internalizing and externalizing adjustment. Additionally, friends who perceived their relationships as high in positive quality, friends in relationships high in disclosure, and girls perceived youths’ internalizing symptoms most accurately. Knowledge of externalizing adjustment was not influenced by gender, grade, relationship quality, or self-disclosure. Findings suggest that friends could play an important role in prevention efforts.

Development of the emotional self-disclosure scale

The Emotional Self-Disclosure Scale (ESDS) was developed to assess how willing people are to discuss specific emotions with different disclosure recipients. Internal reliabilities (Cronbach's alpha) and test-retest were consistently high for each of the subscales on the ESDS for three specific disclosure recipients: female friends, male friends, and spouses/lovers. A final set of results indicated that women's and men's emotional disclosures varied as a function of their gender and the personal characteristics of the disclosure recipient. Although men and women reported a similar pattern of willingness to discuss their emotions with their male friends, additional results revealed that women were more willing than men to disclose information about their feelings of depression, anxiety, anger, and fear to their female friends and spouses/lovers. The implications of these findings for men's and women's emotional expressivity are discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the 33rd annual meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 1987.     

The Contribution of Social Relationships to Children’s Happiness

The association between happiness and social relationships was examined in 9- to 12-year-old children. Participants included 432 children and their parents. Children’s happiness was assessed using self-rating scales, parent’s ratings, and the Happiness and Satisfaction Subscale from the Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale, Second Edition (Piers and Herzberg 2002). Children’s social relations were assessed with items from the Piers-Harris scale and questionnaires given to the children and their parents. These items were grouped into two positive (i.e., family and friends) and two negative categories (i.e., negative relations with peers and behaving badly toward others). Variance in children’s happiness was partially accounted for by positive social interactions involving the family (e.g., children agreeing that they are important members of their family) and friends (e.g., parents reporting that their children visit with friends more frequently). Negative social interactions also explained variance in children’s happiness including negative relations with peers (e.g., children agreeing that they feel left out of things) and behaving badly toward others (e.g., children agreeing that they are often mean to other people, and they cause trouble for their family). Demographic variables related to the family (i.e., number of siblings, age of parents, and marital status of parents) were only weakly, or not at all, associated with children’s happiness. The results parallel findings from the literature involving adults and adolescents; social relationships are significant correlates and predictors of happiness.     

The effect of relational stage and intimacy on touch: An extension of Guerrero and Andersen

The effects of relational stage, intimacy, and gender on touch were examined. Participants were 270 partners from 135 couples involved in a heterosexual romantic relationship. Results indicated that touch varies as a function of relational stage. An examination of relational stage and subjects' perceptions of how much they touched their partner and how much their partner touched them generally indicated an asymptotic relationship. Specifically, men's and women's perceptions of how much they touched their partners, and women's perceptions of how much their partners touched them, increased from the casually dating to the seriously dating stage and then leveled off for seriously dating, engaged, and married couples. Men's perceptions of how much their partners touched them increased from the casually dating to the seriously dating stage then decreased from the seriously dating to the married stage. Relational intimacy was also curvilinearly related to self and partner perceptions of touch. Because there were no significant interaction effects between stage and gender, or intimacy and gender, the curvilinear effects of relational stage and intimacy on touch are generalizable to both men and women.     

Attachment style and intimacy in friendship

Two studies with college students tested the hypothesis that a secure attachment style enhances intimacy in friendship. Three intimacy characteristics were studied: self‐disclosure; responsiveness to a partner's disclosure; and feeling understood, validated, and cared for by a partner during conversations. In Study 1, individuals with a secure attachment style were higher on all three intimacy characteristics In Study 2, a lab‐based assessment of intimacy revealed some relations between attachment and intimacy, providing mixed support for the hypothesis. Both studies found gender differences in intimacy characteristics The findings provide a starting point for a model accounting for individual differences in friendship.     

Adult attachment and perceptions of closeness

An online sample of more than 150,000 participants was used to examine whether—in addition to predicting how much intimacy people want—attachment styles also predict how people define and perceive intimacy. Results indicated that, as compared with relatively secure individuals, people with high levels of attachment anxiety required more time, affection, and self‐disclosure to construe a relationship as “close.” Additionally, anxious individuals perceived less intimacy in relationship vignettes than did their less anxious peers. In contrast, highly avoidant individuals required less time, affection, and self‐disclosure to define a relationship as “close,” and they perceived more intimacy in vignettes than did their more secure peers. These findings indicate that people who are relatively anxious not only want more intimacy in their relationships, but they are also less likely to perceive intimacy, as compared with their less anxious peers. Conversely, people high in avoidance not only want less intimacy, but they are also more sensitive to its presence, as compared with their less avoidant peers.     

Effects of gender,target's gender,topic, and self-esteem on disclosure to best and midling friends

Two studies examining self-disclosure as a function of discloser's gender, target's gender, topic, class standing, and self-esteem are reported. In the first study, 172 college students were given a test containing items from a modified Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire and the Culture-Free Self-Esteem Inventory, and asked to report disclosure to their best, nonromantic, same-and cross-sex friends; the second study was a replication of the first, but the 138 subjects were questioned about disclosure to midling-level friends. The expected effects were found—topic, target's gender, etc.—and self-esteem level and class standing were found to influence disclosure levels as well. The ² and correlations are reported, so that readers can see an estimate of the effects' magnitudes as well as their significance levels.     

“In Sickness and in Health”? Disclosures of Genetic Risks in Dating

Individuals who have, or are at risk for, various genetic disorders face many challenges concerning disclosures of genetic information in dating situations. We conducted a qualitative interview study of 64 individuals confronting Huntington’s disease, breast cancer, or Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, examining what issues these individuals encountered, and how they viewed and addressed these—including issues of understandings, privacy, and disclosures of genetic information to various groups (e.g., family members). Incidental to the primary research questions addressed, participants also often described a series of dilemmas in dating situations that they and/or family members, friends, and fellow patients faced of whether to date, and if so, whether, what, how, why, and when to disclose their genetic risk or illness. At times, these individuals feared and experienced rejection, and hence delayed, avoided, or opposed disclosure, or disclosed indirectly or inadvertently. These data are reported in this paper and highlight the importance of patients, their loved ones, genetic counselors, and other health care providers being aware of these issues, and appreciating the complex factors involved, which can affect patients’ coping and social support. This paper, the first to explore several key aspects of disclosures of genetic information in dating, thus suggests needs for public and professional education, and future research in this area.     

Adolescents' sexual self-disclosure on the internet: deindividuation and impression management

This study examined the effect of anonymity on adolescents' sexual self-disclosure on the Internet and the impact of topic intimacy on their reply intent for sexual disclosure by conducting a survey with 1,347 adolescents. It was found that male participants were more likely than females to engage in sexual self-disclosure and to correspondingly respond to cyber partners' sexual disclosure. Results showed that the greater the anonymity, the greater the intent for sexual self-disclosure. Participants exhibited greater reply intent when cyber partners self-disclosed sexual topics with greater intimacy, and the effect of topic intimacy was more pronounced in male participants. The findings suggest that male adolescents tend to adopt a reciprocal strategy in responding to partners' sexual disclosure on the Internet, whereas females tend to employ a conservative strategy. It was concluded that male and female adolescents revealed differential self-presentation and impression management for their sexual self-disclosing and responding on the Internet.     

Gender, grade, and relationship differences in emotional closeness within adolescent friendships

Previous research has examined gender and grade differences in the emotional closeness of adolescents' same- and cross-sex friendships. However, findings from these studies have been inconsistent because they have failed to (1) differentiate between cross-sex friendships and romantic relationships and (2) compare same- and cross-sex friendships. In an attempt to clarify previous findings, gender and grade differences in adolescent reports of emotional closeness within same- and cross-sex friendships were examined in the current study. Responses from two hundred seventy adolescents indicated gender differences in reports of time spent with their friends daily and levels of relationship closeness, cohesion, and commitment. Further, grade moderated relationship differences in reports of relationship cohesion and closeness. Differences in predictors of intimacy support previous studies that have found grade and gender differences in levels of intimacy in adolescents' same- and cross-sex friendships. Results also elaborate on previous research by indicating grade differences in adolescents' perceptions of cohesion and closeness in their same- and cross-sex friendships. Findings are discussed in terms of understanding differences in adolescent reports of intimacy within same- and cross-sex friendships.