Self-disclosure : a study of the effects of sex-role identity, gender, and target condition

Abstract

This thesis has explored the relationship between self-disclosure (Jourard, 1958) and sex-role identity (Bem, 1972). It was hypothesized that these two elements would interact such that those individuals posessing androgynous sex-role identities would self-disclose more fully to a peer than would individuals posessing sex-typed sex-role identities.This project used a 2 (subject gender) X 2 (sex-role identity) x 3 (target condition) design. The initial sample pool consisted of 151 female and 80 male undergraduate student volunteers. The final sample consisted of 43 female and 14 male students. Married subjects, those identified as sex-reversed, and those subjects who did not attend the second experimental session were eliminated from the final sample. Paper-and-pencil tests measured both self-disclosure and sex-role identity.The analysis of data revealed one significant interaction across the parameters investigated. Males were significantly more "filling to disclose highly intimate personal information than were females. Possible reasons for these results were discussed, and suggestions for further research were made.