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SELF DISCLOSURE - Coggle Diagram
SELF DISCLOSURE
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Real world application
Hass and Stafford (1998) found that 57% of homosexual men and women reported they used open and honest self - disclosure as a realtionship maintenance strategy
Couples who limit communication to 'small talk' can be encouraged to increase self - disclosure in order to deepen their own relationship
this highlights the importance of self - disclosure and suggests the theory can be used to support people having realtionship problems
Culture
Tang et al (2013) concluded that people in the US self - disclose more sexual thoughts and feelings than people in China (individualist vs collectivist)
even though levels of disclosure was lower in China, relationship satisfaction was no different from that in the US
therefore social penetration theory is a limited explanation of romantic relationships because it is not necessarily generalisable to other cultures
Nomothetic
it tires to generate behavioural laws applicable to all people - that higher self disclosure with always lead to greater relationship satisfaction
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therefore explanations based on the idographic approach, looking at couple's unique expereinces in detail without trying to apply findings to all couples may be more appropriate for studying romantic realtionships
research studies
Sprecher and Hendrick
found strong correlations between several measures of satisfaction and self - disclosure in heterosexual couples
Men and women who used self - disclosure were more satisfied with and committed to their romantic partner
this supports the validity of the view that reciprocated self - disclosure is a key part of satisfying romantic realtionships
Counterpoint
positive correlations does not mean that self - disclosure causes relationships to be satisfying. It may be tray satisfied partners disclose more, or both cause satisfaction directly which reduces the validity of social penetration theory
this suggests that self - disclosure may not cause satisfaction directly, which reduces the validity of social penetration theory
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