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Relationship Of Personality And Task Demands To Self-Disclosing Behavior And Psychological Health

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Relationship Of Personality And Task Demands To Self-Disclosing Behavior And Psychological Health

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Content RELATIONSHIP OF PERSONALITY AND TASK DEMANDS TO SELF-DISCLOSING BEHAVIOR AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH by Terry Serfass Davis A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Psychology) February 1973 INFORMATION TO USERS This dissertation was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will fjnd a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 A Xerox Education Company I I 73- 14,396 DAVIS, Terry Serfass, 1942- RELATIONSHIP OF PERSONALITY AND TASK DEMANDS TO SELF-DISCLOSING BEHAVIOR AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1973 Psychology, clinical University Microfilms. A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. UNIVERSITY OF SO UTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL U N IV E R S ITY PARK LOS ANGELES. C A L I FO R N IA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by T e rry ..J e rfa js .. D a vis under the direction of h.P.K... Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has keen presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillm ent of requirements of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y Dean Date...January.. l8,. ..1913 DISSERTATION COMMITTEE PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION....................... 1 Self-Disclosure ................... .... 1 Self-Disclosure and Psychological Health . . 2 Self-Report Studies of Self-Disclosure ... 4 Behavioral Studies of Self-Disclosure ... 6 Recent Behavioral Studies of Self-Disclosure 7 The Importance of Self-Disclosure ....... 9 Need-for-Approval and Defensive Denial .... 9 Defensive Denial and Self-Disclosure ....... 10 Defining Psychological Health .............. 12 The Personal Orientation Inventory ....... 13 Self-Actualization and Self-Disclosure ... 14 Task Demands and Self-Disclosure.......... 15 Need for the Present Study................ 16 Hypotheses.............................. 17 Replication of Previous Findings ......... 18 Defensiveness, Disclosure and Task Demands . 18 Task Demands and Psychological Health ... 19 Defensiveness, Task Demands and Psychological Health ................ 19 CHAPTER II. METHOD.......................... 20 Subjects................................ 20 ii PAGE Instruments.............................. 20 Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, MC-SDS............................ 20 Self-Disclosure Inventory, SDI .......... 20 Self-Disclosure Scores .................. 21 The Personal Orientation Inventory, POI . . 21 Post-Experimental Questionnaire ......... 22 Procedure................................ 22 Experimental Conditions ................... 22 Personal Revelation ........... ..... 23 Discussion............................ 23 Psychotherapy ......................... 24 CHAPTER III. RESULTS......................... 26 Replication of Previous Findings .......... 26 Sex ................................ 26 Prior Knowing......................... 26 Need-for-Approval and Experimental Conditions . 29 Conditions and Disclosure.............. 32 Changes in Self-Actualization .............. 32 CHAPTER IV. DISCUSSION ....................... 38 Summary of Results....................... 38 Sex and Self-Disclosure................... 38 Prior Knowing............... 40 Need-for-Approval and Experimental Conditions . 4l PAGE Need-for-Approval ..................... 4l Conditions..................... 44 Self-Disclosure and Psychological Health ... 45 Task Demands and Psychological Health .... 46 Implications for Future Research .......... 47 Sex............................ 47 Prior Knowing .............. ...... 48 Disclosure . ....................... 48 Need-for-Approval ..................... 49 Experimental Conditions ................ 49 Psychological Health .................. 50 Summary.......................... 51 REFERENCES............................ 53 iv LIST OF TABLES PAGE Table 1. Effect of Sex and Prior Knowing on Personal Information Given and Received......................... 27 Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations for Personal Information Given and Received by Sex. 28 Table 3. Effect of Sex and Prior Knowing on POI Change Scores ................... 30 Table 4. Means and Standard Deviations of Personal Information Given and Received by Conditions ............ 33 Table 5. Effect of Condition and Disclosure on POI Change Scores.............. 3^ Table 6. Means and Standard Deviations of POI Change Scores by Condition and Disclosure....................... 35 Table 7. Effect of Condition and Need-for-Approval on POI Change Scores.............. 37 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Self-Disclosure Self-disclosure for the purpose of this study is an activity in which a person tells about himself to another. It is the base of the psychotherapeutic relationship: the person seeking help reveals to the therapist his situation, thoughts and feelings. How to use and influence the patient's self-disclosures to change his behavior and feelings constitutes the body of psychotherapeutic theory and technique. Disclosure by the patient is assumed in psychotherapeutic treatment; a person who cannot or will not disclose is not amenable or unmotivated for treatment. In this context, it becomes important to understand what self-disclosing behavior is, and what it means to the person doing it. Only then can the relationship between self-disclosure and psychological health be elucidated. Sidney Jourard, believing that self-disclosure has meaning in a person's entire interpersonal functioning, began studying how much people disclose to various other persons with whom they interact. He devised a list of 1 2 topics and statements about the topics, which he called the Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire (Jourard & Lasakov, 1958)* People were asked to tell how much (on a three- point scale) they had told others about themselves for each statement. The "others" were designated target persons such as mother, father, best friend, etc. Jourard studied many populations as well as making cross-cultural studies and he found definite patterns of what and to whom people disclose. In general, people dis close most to: their parents from childhood to adoles cence, to their best same-sex friend during adolescence and young adulthood, and then most to their spouse after marriage (Jourard, 196laj 1961b; 1964). Although there are variations in depth of disclosure according to topic and target person, in general people disclose most freely about Jourard1s topics Attitudes and Opinions, Tastes and Inter ests, and Work (or Studies). People disclose least freely about Money, Personality, and Body. Women are more self- disclosing than men. Extensive collection and tabulation of data confirmed Jourard1s hypothesis that for normal pop ulations the amount of personal information an individual has disclosed to another is correlated with the degree of perceived closeness of the relationship (Jourard, 1959b)• Self-Disclosure and Psychological Health. During the course of his interaction with patients in psychotherapy, Jourard became convinced that ability to self-disclose is 3 directly related to psychological health. Consequently, the therapy for a disturbed person consists of him telling the therapist about himself, and the therapist facilitating the person's self-disclosure. Other practitioner-theorists have presented similar points of view. 0. Hobart Mowrer ( 1963) has stated that mental health is assumed to be related to the ability of an individual to make himself fully known to others. Mowrer believes that neurotic and psychotic symptoms are held to develop because of a breakdown in communication between self and others. Carl Rogers ( 1961) describes the thera pist's responsibility as achieving in therapy an open, honest relationship between the participants so that the patient can learn to be free to be himself, just as the therapist is himself. There is an £ priori logic in positing self-disclosure in the interpersonal situation as being the operative factor in psychotherapy, since it is one element all therapies have in common, regardless of their diversity of theory and technique. Jourard states his theory strongly and enthusiasti cally: "... some as yet undetermined amount ^of self- disclosureT” is synonymous with mental health (1964, p. 15)." Jourard and others give many anecdotal examples of the beneficial effects of self-disclosure. Jourard has devoted numerous articles (e.g., Jourard, 1959a) and two books (Jourard, 1964j Jourard, 1971) to promulgating the view that self-disclosing persons are healthier both mentally and physically than non-confiders. He also believes that self-disclosure is reciprocal; self-disclosing individuals influence those around them to self-disclose. Jourard's position is that self-disclosing makes one feel well and function well; a lack of self-disclosure or the inability to self-disclose adversely affects well-being. Self-Report Studies of Self-Disclosure. One group of studies has used Jourard-type questionnaires to measure past self-disclosure. These disclosure scores have then been related to various criteria of present adjustment or future accomplishment. Jourard obtained self-disclosure scores for nursing students during their sophomore year and found that disclo sure to mother, female friend and total disclosure corre lated significantly with the students' grade point averages at the end of their senior year (196lb). Male graduate students completed a self-disclosure questionnaire and a questionnaire measuring degree of liking and degree to which each knew the others (Jourard & Landsman, i960). The amount of self-disclosure was slightly correlated with liking, and highly correlated with the degree to which they knew the others. On the other hand, Halverson and Shore ( 1969) found that Peace Corps trainees who scored high on a self-disclosure inventory were better liked by other trainees. It may be that the graduate students had varying amounts of exposure to one another, while the Peace Corps trainees were strangers who had been associated for equal lengths of time, making the latter situation a better test of the hypothesis. Self-disclosure to a specific target person was related to neither the Rotter Interpersonal Trust Scale or a more generalized concept of revealingness (Vondracek & Marshall, 1971). In a study by Stanley and Bownes (1966) no relationship was found between the Jourard Questionnaire and the Eysenck measure of neuroticism. When college students were measured for past disclosure and on seven personality variables, it was found that more emotionally unstable males tended to disclose more about their personality, health and physical appearance than stable males, while there was no relationship between the personality variables and self-disclosure for females (Pedersen & Breglio, 1968). In another study involving males and females (Himelstein & Lubin, 1966), there was a positive relationship between self-disclosure and the MMPI K scale for males. Truax and Wittmer (1971) correlated the Jourard Self- Disclosure Questionnaire and the full MMPI and found that when the target person was a good friend, (a) the least well-adjusted Ss showed the greatest amount of self- disclosure and (b) the more well-adjusted Ss showed the least self-disclosure. There was no relationship between 6 self-disclosure and personality adjustment when a family member was the target person. Although this group of studies appears to negate the Jourard hypothesis that more self-disclosure equals more mental health, it must be noted that these studies dealt with self-reported past disclosure and all were done with college-age students. There is some evidence, however, that the less healthy report more dis closure to their friends. The relationship between self-disclosure question naires and common objective measures of personality functioning appears to be specific rather than general, and without validation from tests designed to measure amount of health rather than amount of pathology. Grades and liking of peers involve too many intervening variables to be con sidered as equivalents of mental health. Behavioral Studies of Self-Disclosure. Another approach to studying self-disclosure is to measure self disclosure as it occurs or to manipulate its occurrence. Subjects have reported that they would be willing to dis close in greater depth than they have in the past if the person to whom they were going to disclose initiated by himself disclosing at greater depth (Weigel, Weigel & Chadwick, 1969). In one study, self-disclosure was manip ulated by having confederates self-disclose (Chillich & Himelstein, 1967). When confronted with self-disclosure, Ss tended to respond in kind. In an actual counseling situation where all participants were asked the same ques tions, which were scaled for intimacy, they felt it easier to be intimate when others were sharing the same informa tion about themselves (Gary & Hammond, 1970). Thomas ( 1968) studied self-disclosure in counselor-trainees, using a questionnaire to measure amount of disclosure before and after a one-year NDEA Institute program. Self-disclosure scores were higher after the program and a positive rela tionship was found between self-disclosure, particularly in the required information "interaction" group, and a measure of personal adjustment (discrepancy between real and ideal self). Burhenne and Mirels (1970) employed a self-description essay procedure to ascertain the degree to which self- disclosing behavior would be predicted by scores on the Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire and by scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Data from 56 college women revealed no relationship between self disclosure in the essays and self-disclosure scores on the questionnaire. A significant negative relationship was found between disclosure in the essays and Marlowe-Crowne scores. Recent Behavioral Studies of Self-Disclosure. Some recent studies have investigated the amount of personal information disclosed in dyads and groups. Berger, Millham, Jacobson and Anchor (1970) asked Ss how much 8 personal information they had disclosed to their best friend and to a person with whom they participated in an informal tape-recorded discussion dyad. Although it might be expected that those persons who had already disclosed to the other in their dyad would continue to do so, and that those persons who had not previously confided in their partners would continue to be reticent, that was not the finding. In the experimental setting, those who had pre viously confided less personal information confided more and also were confided to more. Apparently strangers have a larger pool of unshared personal information than do friends. In a more detailed analysis of the data, it was found women both gave and received more personal information than men (Millham, Berger & Jacobson, 1970). This type of investigation was continued further using groups interacting instead of dyads (Berger & Anchor, 1971). Results were analyzed, however, in terms of each individual relating to other individuals in the group. Although it remained true that a person who was less well known by the group gave significantly more personal statements and received significantly more statements, the received state ments were of an impersonal nature. The reasons for this are unclear, but it appears that in a group situation those who are more well known by group members do not feel impelled or willing to risk in the presence of a less known person, while the less known person does. 9 The Importance of Self-Disclosure. Self-disclosure is an important part of human social interaction, a concomi tant of interpersonal intimacy, and the cornerstone of the psychotherapeutic relationship. The sketchy research on occurrence and meaning of self-disclosure from one person to another suggests that self-disclosure follows develop mental patterns and that in certain specific ways reflects the presence or absence of psychological health. The con ditions for a more general test of whether or not self disclosure in and of itself is health-promoting have not been met. Since self-disclosure, like all behavior, is motivated, it becomes important to consider what factors may motivate or hinder self-disclosure. Need-for-Approval and Defensive Denial Crowne and Marlowe (1964) have postulated a motive they call need-for-approval (NA) and have developed a scale for its measurement, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, i960). In researching how this motive influences behavior, they have, found that people high in this need appear to be very responsive to the evaluation of others or society as a whole, and guide their behavior in such a way as to obtain favorable evaluation. Approval is sought by such people even if it means denying their own feelings, such as hostility (Conn & Crowne, 1964). Jacobson, Berger and Millham (1970) found that if a person is both high in need-for-approval and indicated 10 self-esteem he will attempt to gain approval and protect his self-esteem when placed in a social-fallure situation with deceptive behavior if given an opportunity lo do so. In other words, he will arrange for others to believe he has succeeded. Berger (1971) tested further to see if such face- saving behavior was only for public consumption or if high NA persons would avoid threats to self-esteem by acting defensively when only they and no one else would know the outcome. It was found that people high in need-for- approval and who had predicted success on the experimental task (high self-esteem) cheated to achieve success even when they alone had knowledge of their performances. Self- deceptive action and denial of reality are means of pro tecting self-esteem. Levin, Berger, Millham and Jacobson (1973) replicated the finding that high need-for-approval Ss engaged in defensive behavior when placed in a social-failure situ ation. Also, Ss1 self-esteem scores were lower after experiencing failure, supporting the theory that the defen sive behavior of people high in need-for-approval is an attempt to protect their self-esteem. Defensive Denial and Self-Disclosure Marlowe (1962) found that high NA Ss' positive self references could be increased using "um-hum" as a rein forcer for each such statement. He concluded that 11 meaningful verbal behavior can be influenced in high need- for-approval individuals, although he did not study negative self-reference. As described earlier, self-disclosure on a self- descriptive essay was found to be negatively related to scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Burhenne & Mirels, 1970). Respondent verbal fluency was found to be substantially associated with self-disclosure in the essay. This seems to be evidence that the more defensive, high need-for-approval Ss constricted their pro duction of self-disclosure in the essay. In psychotherapy, approval motivation conflicts with the need to reveal oneself to the therapist. A "good patient" must divulge his difficulties. Indeed, high need- for-approval people are early terminators in psychotherapy (Strickland & Crowne, 1 9 63)* On the basis of this and other studies, Crowne and Marlowe conclude: . . . among these /High need-for-approval/r individuals there is evidence to indicate a particular style of defense against hostility and self-protective, avoidant measures to avert anticipated threats to self-esteem, (p. 1 6 5, 1964) As a further means of predicting self-disclosure in groups, Anchor, Vojtisek and Berger (1971) administered the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale prior to groups engaging in a 40-minute video-taped discussion. The groups were composed of hospitalized schizophrenics with good premorbid histories. It was expected that high NA Ss would 12 disclose less, as a means of defending self-esteem, and those low on the Marlowe-Crowne scale would disclose less as being generally less motivated by social approval. It was found that individuals in the mid-range of the Marlowe- Crowne scale engaged in the most self-disclosure. The authors further suggest that this motivation be taken into account when constructing groups where self-disclosure is an important activity. Thus, self-disclosure as an activity vital in forming relationships and in participating in psychotherapy can be threatening to people high in need-for-approval. In a disclosure situation where self-esteem is threatened, high NA individuals may defend their self-esteem by refusal to disclose. Defining Psychological Health Jourard (1964) views self-disclosure as a symptom of a healthy personality. Although health can be construed as meaning a person who can function without disabling diffi culties, a more positive construct is one in which the individual's goal is to achieve comfort and spontaneity in being himself. In other words, a person does not have to exist merely without problems, he can function at his highest potential level of health and happiness. This process of the healthy individual actively being himself and satisfying his unique needs is called self-actualiza tion. Psychology is indebted to Abraham Maslow for 13 creating this term and focusing on what psychological health can mean besides the absence of pathology (Maslow, 1967). The Personal Orientation Inventory. The school of American Gestalt psychotherapy developed around seeking ways to promote and enhance self-actualization in normal as well as neurotic populations. One of its practitioners, Everett Shostrom, created the Personal Orientation Inven tory (POI) to measure the degree to which a person is self- actualized (Shostrom, 1962). To Shostrom, the self- actualizing person "is developing and utilizing all of his unique capabilities, free of the inhibitions and emotional turmoil of those less self-actualized ( 1968, p. 5)." The POI differentiates between persons nominated by clinicians as being self-actualized and persons designated as non-self-actualized (Shostrom, 1968). In Shostrom1s validation studies ( 1968) the POI reliably discriminated differences between beginning and advanced therapy patients, with the latter more self-actualized. It is also reported that various treatment samples (inpatients, alcoholics, convicted felons) were less self-actualized than normal or self-actualized samples. In a lengthy review of all reported studies to the date of the review (Knapp, 1971) it does appear that the POI can differentiate among levels of self-actualization. In relationship to other standard personality tests, the POI scales relate negatively to measures of symptoms and 14 dysfunction and positively to measures of healthy func tioning. However, no other tests measure exactly the same areas as the POI, thus making other tests inadequate criteria for validation. The POI may tap areas of "emotional morale" or psychological well-being. One particularly useful aspect of this test is that when people have been asked to take it and "fake good" or "fake bad," their results do not conform to the pattern of the truly self-actualizing person (Shostrom, 1968). Therefore, seeking to answer in an "approved" direction will not bias a person's score on the POI. Self-Actualization and Self-Pisclosure. One study has been done relating level of self-actualization as measured by the POI to self-disclosing behavior. Undergraduates were separated into groups on the basis of their scores on the POI (Hekmat & Theiss, 1971)• Those in the high self- actualizing group disclosed significantly more affective self-disclosure than did the other groups. After a social conditioning interview was held, the low self-actualizing group showed the highest rate of conditioning of affective self-disclosures. When the conditioning contingencies were removed, however, the high self-actualizing group showed the greatest resistance to extinction of their rate of affective self-disclosures. Thus, self-disclosure does seem to be an integral part of the behavioral repertoire of the self actualized person and a person less self-actualized can be 15 influenced in this ability. It is tempting to speculate that the low self- actualizing Ss in the above study were also high in need- for-approval. This would explain their low base rates of affective self-disclosure, as well as their vigorous response to a social conditioning interview. This study did not measure if the low and moderate self-actualizing Ss increased in self-actualization after their increase in affective self-disclosures during the conditioning session. Task Demands and Self-Disclosure An experimental situation specifies the behaviors that it is constructed to study. Subjects are given instructions intended to produce the behaviors of interest. However, inherent in the situation itself are goals and activities which the typical S will understand and try to attain. These goals and activities, both overt and implicit, are task demands, e.g., attending to and following directions. Self-disclosure may vary according to the circumstances a person is in or the way he is approached. In prior small group studies discussed above (Berger, et al., 1970; Berger & Anchor, 1971; Anchor, et al., 1971) Ss were merely asked to discuss a topic without any clue concerning the purpose of the discussion. This is analo gous to most real-life situations, where a person has a choice about whether or not he will engage in a given behavior. In the two most fertile situations for 16 self-disclosure — psychotherapy and friendship — it has been shown that people scoring high on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale will leave the psychotherapeutic field rather than risk negative self-disclosure, and that people who know one another well choose to refrain from deeper disclosure unless one chooses to risk initiating such disclosure. In friendship, disclosure is up to the individual, depending on how intimate he wishes to be. In psychother apy it is implied that self-disclosure is important and will lead to a person's feeling better. One can choose to question another and pay attention to the other's disclo sures rather than disclosing himself. Analogues of the friendship and psychotherapy situation have been studied experimentally. As yet, an experimental situation has not been constructed that has self-disclosure as its activity but no designated gain as its outcome. Need for the Present Study Sidney Jourard hypothesizes that self-disclosure is both a symptom of a healthy personality and the means of achieving psychological health. However, the task demands of psychotherapy as traditionally practiced imply self disclosure as a primary activity and increased psychologi cal health as the outcome. Thus the relationship of self- disclosure to psychological health is not clear. Need-for-approval, the motivational construct of 17 Crowne and Marlowe, has been shown to Influence a person's response to task demands. Persons seeking social approval willingly engage in behavior desired by others. Research has established that the higher one's need-for-approval, the more his self-esteem is increased by pleasing others. In psychotherapy, need-for-approval creates an approach- avoidance conflict, as the task demand is to expose material damaging to self-esteem. High need-for-approval individ uals are early terminators in psychotherapy. Other research has shown that the degree to which people know one another influences the amount they are willing to disclose. All self-disclosure implies a willing ness to risk being known by another, and the amount a person has disclosed about himself to various people reflects the degree to which he is intimate with each of them. The less a person is known to another, the more he is likely to dis close about himself. Good friends have already exchanged a great deal of personal information and so have less of a personal nature to tell one another. Self-actualization is the state of psychological health in which a person is able to utilize all his capabil ities, including the capacity to relate intimately to others without defensiveness. Self-actualization can be reliably measured by Shostrom's Personal Orientation Inven tory. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the 18 relationship between self-disclosure and psychological health (self-actualization), to study self-disclosure in people with varying need-for-approval, and to discover how self-disclosure varies with task demands. Hypotheses Basic considerations in this study are: 1) effect of level of need-for-approval on self-disclosing behavior, 2) amount of self-disclosure in situations with varying task demands, 3) effect of task demands on changes in psy chological health, 4) relationship of prior self-reported disclosure to self-disclosing behavior, and 5) relationship of self-disclosing behavior to changes in psychological health. Replication of Previous Findings. 1. Females will disclose more than males. 2. Individuals knowing their partner well before the experiment will disclose less than individuals not knowing their partner prior to the experimental session. 3. Self-disclosure will be greatest by persons scoring in the mid-range of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Defensiveness, Disclosure, and Task Demands. 4. High need-for-approval Ss will disclose most where the task demand is self-disclosure, and least under a task demand of psychotherapy, which may be threatening to self-esteem. 5. Low need-for-approval Ss will self-disclose the same across task demands — self-disclosure, neutral or psychotherapy. Task Demands and Psychological Health. 6. Subjects will become more self-actualizing after experiencing task demands of self-disclosure and psychotherapy. Defensiveness, Task Demands and Psychological Health. 7. High need-for-approval Ss will become more self- actualized after responding to task demands to self-disclosure than after task demands to be therapeutic, although both task demands will result in positive changes in self-actualization. CHAPTER II METHOD Subjects Subjects were 64 undergraduate students enrolled in introductory psychology courses at the University of Southern California, assigned to experimental conditions in 15 male and 17 female dyads. Instruments Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, MC-SDS (Crowne S t Marlowe, 1964). Protocols were scored for items marked in the socially approved direction. Ss were divided into approximately equal high, medium and low need-for- approval groups. Self-Disclosure Inventory, SDI. The 60-item Self- Disclosure Questionnaire of Jourard (1964) was used and each S evaluated how much he had disclosed about himself on each item to his best friend and to his partner in the present experiment. He could rate the depth of his disclosure as 0 ("have told the other person nothing about this aspect of me"), 1 ("have told the other person something about this 20 21 aspect of me"), or 2 ("have told the other person every thing about this aspect of me"). Scores were obtained for the number of items marked 0, 1 and 2 for both the best friend and experimental partner. The number of items marked 1 and 2 for the experimental partner were combined and the total was used to dichotomize Ss into high and low prior knowers of their partners. Self-Disclosure Scores. The tapes of the experimental sessions were scored for personal and impersonal statements made by each participant. Criteria for a statement being considered personal were in accordance with those used by Berger, et al. (1970): that the statement was 1) subjec tive rather than objective, 2) personal rather than about others, and 3) first hand rather than from books or experts. Two raters scored the tapes of the first 13 sessions. Interrater reliability was .78, so the rest of the tapes were scored by one rater, the author. The Personal Orientation Inventory, POI (Shostrom, 1962). This instrument was chosen for its emphasis on positive psychological health. Such an emphasis seemed appropriate for a study utilizing a normal population as Ss. The POI was administered to Ss two weeks prior to and again immediately after the experimental session. Change scores for the Time Competence (Tc), Inner-Directed (I), and Self-Actualizing Values (SAV) scales were compiled. These scales were selected because they account for most of 22 the variance of the test (Klavetter & Mogar, 1967). Post-Experimental Questionnaire. This questionnaire evaluated Ss1 liking for the experiment, their anxiety level during the experimental session and the effectiveness of the experimental manipulation, it also asked if Ss had revealed anything during the experimental session they had never revealed about themselves before. Procedure Ss volunteered for an experimental session with a friend of the same sex. Two weeks prior to the session, they completed the MC-SDS, the SDI and the POI. In the experimental session Ss were seated in a room, instructions were read to them by E and their participation was tape- recorded for 15 minutes. At the end of the session, partic ipants were readministered the POI and asked to complete the post-experimental questionnaire. Experimental Conditions The purpose of the experimental conditions was to create various kinds of task demands for £s. The condi tions were designed to provide cues for self-disclosure ranging from explicit to neutral to implied. The cues were provided in instructions. Instructions took approximately 3 minutes to deliver and were read from a sheet of paper on a clipboard. Condi tions were rotated in a fixed order and assigned to Ss in 23 the order they appeared for the experimental pre-testing. The author served as E for all sessions except two, in which an undergraduate was E. Personal Revelation. This condition directed partic ipants to self-disclose: We are studying how people communicate in various situations. What you are to do in this session is talk to each other as if you were in a leaderless group, the purpose of which is personal revelation. This means that you are to talk to each other about yourselves, your personal experiences and feelings, to get to know each other better. This research is important in studying how people tell each other about themselves, so please do your very best to bring out as much personal in formation as possible. Your participation will be tape-recorded. The tape will be heard only by our raters, who will know nothing else about you. Anything you say here will be confidential. The session will last 15 minutes. Remember, you are to reveal personal information. Start out with the topic of "Friendship" and then you may go on to anything else you wish. Please give your honest ideas, experiences and feelings to help stimulate the session. Do you have any questions? I will knock on the door at the end of 15 minutes. The first thing 1 want you each to say is your first name, so I can connect the voice with the name. Discussion. This condition was one of neutral threat and control, in which Ss were merely asked to talk, with no implication that they should self-disclose. The instruc tions for these Ss were: We are studying how people communicate in various situations. What you are to do in this session is talk to each other as if you were in a leaderless group, the purpose of which is discussion. This means that you are to talk to each other about 24 your ideas and experiences to explore and share knowD.edge you have. This research is important in studying how people exchange ideas and information, so please do your very best to bring out any facts and ideas you may have. Your participation will be tape-recorded. The tape will be heard only by our raters, who will know nothing else about you. Anything you say here will be confidential. The session will last 15 minutes. Remember, you are to discuss. Start out with the topic of "Friendship" and then you may go on to anything else you wish. Please give your honest ideas, experiences and feelings to help stimulate the session. Do you have any questions? I will knock on the door at the end of 15 minutes. The first thing I want you each to say is your first name, so I can connect the voice with the name. Psychotherapy. In this condition, intimate and/or negative self-disclosure is an implied demand. These Ss were instructed: We are studying how people communicate in various situations. What you are to do in this session is talk to each other as if you were in a leaderless group, the purpose of which is psychotherapy. This means that you are to talk to each other about your problems and feelings and try to help each other. This research is important in studying how people can help each other, so please do your very best to bring out problems and feelings to work on. Your participation will be tape-recorded. The tape will be heard only by our raters, who will know nothing else about you. Anything you say here will be confidential. The session will last 15 minutes. Remember, you are to be helpful to each other in dealing with your problems and feelings. Start out with the topic of "Friendship" and then you may go on to anything else you wish. Please give your honest ideas, experiences and feelings to help stimulate the session. Do you have any questions? I will 25 knock on the door at the end of 15 minutes. The first thing I want you each to say is your first name, so I can connect the voice with the name. After all the data was collected, the tapes were scored for self-disclosure. The type of session was not identified until the end of the session. To further avoid experimenter bias, the objective tests were not scored until after scoring of the tapes was completed. CHAPTER III RESULTS Replication of Previous Findings An overall analysis of variance was computed, using Sex and two levels of Prior Knowing (high and low) as independent variables, and personal information given and received as the dependent variables. The results are reported in Table 1. Sex. Women were found to give significantly more personal information than men (p< .001, F=12.24, df=l,60). Women also received significantly more personal statements than men (p<" .001, F=12.24, df=l,6o). Means and standard deviations for this effect on given and received scores are presented in Table 2. Thus, the first hypothesis, that women would disclose more than men, was confirmed at a high level of significance. Prior Knowing. The level of Prior Knowing of the experimental partner had virtually no effect on personal information given (p<T.95) or received (p<.9l). The mean number of personal statements given and received was the same for high and low prior knowers within sexes. The 26 27 TABLE 1 Effect of Sex and Prior Knowing on Personal Information Given and Received Dependent Variables Independent Variables Personal Information Given Personal Information Received F P< F P< Sex (S) 12.24 .001 12.24 .001 Prior Knowing (K) .01 .95 .01 .91 SK .02 .86 .01 .92 28 TABLE 2 Means and Standard Deviations for Personal Information Given and Received by Sex Dependent Variables Independent Variables Personal Information Given Personal Information Received Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Sex Male 33.30 17.55 33.40 17.05 Female 48.01 15.83 48.01 15.83 29 prediction of Hypothesis 3 that high prior knowers would give and receive less personal information was not con firmed. Thus, women talked more in a personal way in the sessions than did men. An analysis of variance with Prior Knowing and Sex as independent variables was performed. Dependent variables were change scores on the POI scales Time Competence (Tc), Inner-Directedness (I) and Self- Actualizing Values (SAV). The results of this analysis are presented in Table 3* It was found that neither men nor women as a group demonstrated changes in self-actualization even though women disclosed significantly more than men in the experimental session. Need-for-Approval and Experimental Conditions Experimental Conditions (personal revelation, discus sion and psychotherapy) and Need-for-Approval (high, medium and low) served as independent variables in an anal ysis of variance using personal information given and received as the dependent variables. A significant overall effect of Need-for-Approval was not obtained for personal information given (p<".l8, F=1.77, df=2, 5 5), or for personal information received (pK. 97, F=.o4, df=2,55). Thus, the expectation that medium need- for-approval Ss would engage in the most self-disclosure of the need-for-approval groups, as stated in Hypothesis 3, was not supported. 30 TABLE 3 Effect of Sex and Prior Knowing on POI Change Scores Dependent Variables Tc I SAV F P< F P< F P < Sex (S) 1.20 .27 .83 .36 .09 .75 Prior Knowing (K) .04 .83 .77 .38 i.4 o .24 SK .01 .94 .20 .65 .21 .65 Hypothesis 4 predicted that high need-for-approval Ss would disclose most in the personal revelation condition and least in the psychotherapy condition. A planned com parison of high need-for-approval Ss across the conditions was performed. A significant effect of Condition for high need-for-approval Ss was obtained (p<.025, F=5.29, df=2,20). High need-for-approval Ss disclosed most in the personal revelation (mean=51. 22) and psychotherapy (mean= 5 1. 5) conditions and least in the discussion condition (mean=35»75)• Therefore, Hypothesis 4 was partially con firmed. Hypothesis 5 predicted that low need-for-approval Ss would give the same amount of personal information across conditions; i.e., that they would be unresponsive to instruction-j designed to manipulate their behavior. There was a nonsignificant effect of Condition on low need-for- approval Ss (p^.25, F=1.52, df=2,l8). Although statis tically Hypothesis 5 was confirmed, the disclosure of low need-for-approval £s tended to follow the same pattern as disclosure of high need-for-approval Ss: most disclosure in the personal revelation (mean=45.71) and psychotherapy (mean=4l.44) conditions and least disclosure in the discus sion condition (mean-28.4). Medium need-for-approval Ss did not appear to demon strate a difference in personal information given across conditions. Since no hypothesis was made concerning the 32 effect of conditions on medium need-for-approval S>s, no test was performed. Conditions and Disclosure The effect of Condition on personal information given approached significance (p<.09> F=2.53* df=2,55)» The Condition effect on personal information received also approached significance (p<’ .09> F=2.46, df=2,55). Means and standard deviations for the three conditions are pre sented in Table 4. Table 4 indicates that personal infor mation given and received was greatest in the personal revelation and psychotherapy conditions and least in the discussion condition. Changes in Self-Actualization An analysis of variance was performed with Condition and high and low levels of Disclosure as Independent vari ables and change scores on the POI as dependent variables. POI scales analyzed were Time Competence (Tc), Inner- Directedness (I) and Self-Actualizing Values (SAV). Only the SAV scale varied significantly over conditions (p<.001, F=9»53> df=2, 58). The analysis is presented in Table 5 and the means and standard deviations of the change scores are presented in Table 6. It can be determined from Table 5 that amount of disclosure had no effect on change scores. Hypothesis 6 predicted that Ss participating in per sonal revelation and psychotherapy conditions would become 33 TABLE 4 Means and Standard Deviations of Personal Information Given and Received by Condition Dependent Variables Independent Variables Personal Information Given Personal Information Received Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Condition Personal Revelation 44.85 16.30 44.54 16.65 Discussion 39.52 13.93 33.33 14.65 Psychotherapy 43.98 20 .28 43.21 20.48 34 TABLE 5 Effect of Condition and Disclosure on POI Change Scores Dependent Variables Independent Variables Tc I SAV F K F P< F P< Condition (C) .60 • 55 1.33 .27 9.53 .001 Disclosure (D) .15 .70 .22 .64 1.23 .27 CD .73 .46 • r o r o 0 0 0 • 2.23 .12 35 TABLE 6 Means and Standard Deviations of POI Change Scores by Condition and Disclosure Dependent Variables Independent Variables Tc I SAV Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Condition Personal Revelation .40 2.17 1.50 LI. 30 -.80 2.50 Discussion .90 2.73 3.97 5.20 2.12 '1.85 Psychotherapy .05 1.61 3.98 5.23 1.82 1.81 Disclosure High .87 3-45 2.66 8.73 .13 I.69 Low .61 2.13 3.30 6.71 1.52 2.13 36 more self-actualizing. It can be seen from Table 6 that the changes in SAV were positive for the discussion and psychotherapy conditions and negative for the personal revelation condition. Thus the results are equivocal and Hypothesis 6 cannot be supported. A further analysis was performed with Condition and Need-for-Approval as independent variables and change scores on the POI as dependent variables. These results are presented in Table 7. It was predicted in Hypothesis 7 that Need-for-Approval and Condition would interact in such a way that high need-for-approval Ss would show a higher increase in self-actualizing tendencies after the personal revelation condition than after the psychotherapy condi tion. Changes in SAV are again highly related to Condition in this analysis (p<".001, F=9.09# df=2, 55). High need- for-approval Ss showed no change in POI scores by condition and Hypothesis 7 is not supported. Of the proposed hypotheses, Hypotheses 1 and 5 were confirmed. Hypothesis 4 was partially confirmed. The results were equivocal in regard to Hypothesis 6 and no support was found for the other three experimental hypo theses . 37 TABLE 7 Effect of Condition and Need-for-Approval on POI Change Scores Dependent Variables Independent Variables Tc I SAV F P< F P< F P< Condition (C) .59 .56 1.38 .26 9.10 .001 Need-for-Approval (N) .21 .81 1.78 .18 1.67 .20 CN .66 .62 • ^9 .74 .61 . _ .66 CHAPTER IV DISCUSSION Summary of Results It was found that sex had an extremely significant effect on amount of self-disclosure; that is, women dis close more than men. Prior knowledge of partner had no effect on amount disclosed in the experimental sessions. High need-for-approval Ss disclosed most in the personal revelation and psychotherapy conditions, least in the dis cussion condition. In general, Ss disclosed more in the personal revelation and psychotherapy conditions. Changes in self-actualization after the experimental sessions were found for the Self-Actualizing Values scale of the POI. Ss who participated in personal revelation sessions decreased slightly in these values; participants in discussion and psychotherapy conditions changed in the positive direction. The difference between the negative and positive changes by condition was highly significant. Sex and Self-Disclosure Jourard found that women reported more self-disclosure 38 to target persons than did men. He accounted for this as an outcome of the cultural stereotype of women being more emotionally open, trusting and dependent than men. In The Transparent Self (1964) he argues that men would be free of much of their tension-produced physical illness if they could emulate the disclosing activity of women. A compar ison of pre-study self-actualizing tendencies for men and women was not part of the present analysis. This study focused on the more specific question of the relationship of self-disclosure to changes in self-actualization. Analyses indicated that although women disclosed more across all conditions, they did not become more self actualized than did the men as a result of higher self- disclosing. This study also confirmed the finding of Millham, Berger and Jacobson (1970) that female dyads in a similar experimental setting confided more than males. In repli cating the effect of sex on reported self-disclosure and self-disclosing behavior in the experimental situation, the validity of the present study is enhanced. Findings con sistent with past accepted findings suggest the experimen tal manipulations did produce the kind of general self disclosure that was needed to test the hypotheses of interest. On the basis of these results, sex is an important and apparently powerful variable to consider in self-disclosure 40 research. Since the amount of personal information given and received was consistent within sex across conditions, and there was no change in self-actualizing tendencies by sex, it appears that the present study obtained a base rate of self-disclosure for men and women. Since women in same- sex dyads consistently disclose more than do men, construc tion of mixed dyads would undoubtedly have a confounding effect on experimental manipulations of self-disclosure. Prior Knowing The phenomena of low prior knowers giving and receiv ing more personal information was not found. The most similar study (Berger, et al., 1970) measured the self- disclosing behavior of high and low prior knowers in an informal discussion session. In the present study, discus sion was only one condition and the instructions were quite specific. The effect may have been obscured by the small number of dyads in each condition. Also, all £s were administered tests prior to the experimental session which may have influenced the amount of disclosure in the ses sions, regardless of the instructions. There was no control assessment of the effect of the pre-testing. The group study of self-disclosure (Berger & Anchor, 19 71) found that low prior knowers gave more personal infor mation but received remarks of an impersonal nature. They explained this as a "getting to know you" effect, where the better known group members made inquiries of less known 41 members. The effect was not obtained in the present study. It is likely that dyads interact in a different way than groups. Need-for-Approval and Experimental Conditions Need-for-Approval. The expectation that medium need- for-approval scorers would engage in the most self disclosure as found by Anchor, Vojtiscek and Berger (1971) was not confirmed. However, this was a tenuous hypothesis, since the previous study utilized good premorbid hospital ized schizophrenics as its population of study and the present data is from college students. The relationship of need-for-approval and self-disclosing activity in different populations is an area to be further investigated. High need-for-approval Ss were expected to respond both to the experimental instructions (cues for desired behavior) and to the need to defend against implied threat to their self-esteem in the psychotherapy condition. Thus, these Ss would self-disclose when directed to do so, but avoid self disclosure if that disclosure would imply anything negative about the person. Instead, high need-for-approval Ss responded similarly in the personal revelation and psycho therapy conditions; they gave most personal information in these conditions, and least in the discussion condition. It could simply be assumed that the high need-for- approval group was motivated by social approval to do E* s bidding. Actual psychotherapy is known to be threatening 42 to these people (Strickland & Crowne, 1963) and to evoke such defensive behavior as termination of therapy. In the present study it is likely that high need-for-approval Ss did not perceive the psychotherapy condition as one of threat, particularly since there was no authority or "therapist" present in the session. The content of items scored as personal was not monitored. Thus, Ss could have chosen to disclose only non-threatening material and thus avoided the implied threat of the instructional task demand. It may be that defensive Ss can freely reveal as long as they have control over the type of disclosure made. Low need-for-approval Ss disclosed in the same pattern as high need-for-approval Sjs. This was a surprising finding, since it has been found that these people do not have a high level of motivation to follow other people's instructions (Crowne & Marlowe, 1964). However, that is what they did in this study: low need-for-approval S j s disclosed most in the personal revelation and psychotherapy conditions and least in the discussion condition. This finding was not statistically significant, but is worth considering since the medium need-for-approval Ss showed almost no differences in self-disclosure across conditions. The low need-for-approval Ss must have been personally motivated to disclose in the personal revelation and psycho therapy conditions. It has been noted (Hood & Beck, 1971) that individuals 43 may vary in their attraction to self-revealing situations. The act of volunteering to participate in a psychological experiment implies a tacit willingness on the part of the subject to reveal himself to the experimenter. Since the present experiment was billed as a "rap session," it may be that all Ss came to the experiment with a set that they would talk about themselves on a more than superficial level. The revealing situation may have been what low need-for-approval £s were seeking. And, in fact, in the post-experimental questionnaire, most Ss reported enjoying the experiment because they liked sitting down and talking with a friend or they liked getting to know someone new. The expected interaction of need-for-approval and con ditions was not found. Instead, a new question has been generated: Why did both high- and low- need-for-approval £s disclose most in the personal revelation and psychother apy conditions? The above discussion gives some guesses as to why this may be so: i.e., that high need-for-approval Ss were not sufficiently threatened by the psychotherapy condition to restrict their production of self-disclosures and that low need-for-approval Ss came to the experiment wanting to disclose. However, the next step in evaluating this result would be to examine more closely the content of statements which were scored as self-disclosures. It may be that the disclosures engaged in by these two groups is qualitatively different although quantitatively similar. 44 Conditions. The conditions were an important part of the experiment. One question to be answered was whether task demands could be used to manipulate self-disclosure. It was found that the conditions had an effect approaching significance in the expected directions: most self- disclosure in personal revelation and psychotherapy condi tions, and least self-disclosure in the discussion condi tion. It seems likely that the method used in the present study can effectively manipulate self-disclosure. It was of interest to know whether the task demand or the personality variable of need-for-approval would have most influence on Ss' self-disclosing behavior. In the present study the majority of Ss responded to the behavioral task demands, regardless of the level of need-for-approval. Again, if there is an interaction between the task demand and need-for-approval, as seems likely from past research, it must lie in analyzing the content of self-disclosures or in making the psychotherapy situation much more threatening to self-esteem. The most crucial role of the experimental conditions in this study was to construct a situation in which self disclosure was the only desired activity, and then to com pare that situation with neutral and psychotherapeutic activities. Since self-disclosure is a basic activity in psychotherapy, it was expected that the personal revelation and psychotherapy conditions would involve similar amounts of self-disclosure but with different expectations on the part of Ss as to the meaning of what they were doing. The personal revelation session was for the purpose of getting to know another person better; the psychotherapy session was for the purpose of helping one another with problems. It was found that directions to self-disclose and directions to talk about problems resulted in about equal amounts of self-disclosure. It is important to recognize that these naive Ss saw self-disclosure as a basic activity in psycho therapy; thus there is experimental validity in testing to determine if these two conditions have similar effects on changes in self-actualization before and after participating in the sessions. Self-Disclosure and Psychological Health A method was established in this study to investigate self-disclosure as an agent of therapeutic change. Three scales of the POI were used as measures of psychological health. Difference scores on the pre- and post-experimental administration of the POI were analyzed to determine if the scores were related to amount of self-disclosure. No such relationship was found. Although the method of the present study did successfully manipulate task demands and self disclosure, one 15-minute experimental session was probably not enough to significantly change a person's level of self-actualization through his self-disclosing behavior. 46 Task Demands and Psychological Health Using the POI as an index of psychological health, it was found that the conditions did significantly influence changes in one scale of the POI, the Self-Actualizing Values scale. A high score on this scale means that the individual holds and lives by values of self-actualizing people, and a low score means he rejects values of self- actualizing people (Shostrom, 1968). The significant result was that Ss in the personal revelation condition declined slightly on this scale, while Ss in the discussion and psychotherapy conditions improved. An interesting explanation of this finding involves the set created in S during the experimental session prior to the final administration of the POI. Values are primar ily intellectual in nature. The value scale of the POI could change significantly while the scales dealing with behavior (use of time and inner-directedness) do not. The discussion condition produced higher identification with the values of self-actualized people and the discussion condition was oriented toward intellectual consideration of the concept of friendship. Ss in the psychotherapy condi tion also showed gains in self-actualizing values and they may have conceived of the psychotherapy session as a problem-solving, or intellectual activity. In the personal revelation condition, in which Ss focused on telling about themselves, an activity for which there is little 47 intellectual framework, there was a slight decline in their profession of the values of self-actualizing people. Ss in this study were normal and did not have exten sive knowledge of or experience in psychotherapy. A possible explanation of these results, then, is that change in the intellectualized measure of self-actualization reflectes a set toward intellectualizing acquired during the experimental session. Again, a content analysis of the types of disclosures made would clarify the kind of activity Ss actually engaged in during the experimental session. Also, this result indicates the necessity of making the psychotherapy condition more realistic. Although in no sense significant, it is interesting to note that throughout the analyses there was a trend for positive changes on the scales of the POI to occur in as sociation with the psychotherapy condition. Thus, the most fundamental question of this study, does the task demand of health or the activity of self-disclosure influ ence people to report feeling better after psychotherapy, remains unanswered. It is still a valid and important question and the present study has been of value in advancing the methodology to address the matter. Implications for Future Research Sex. The highly significant finding of the effects of sex on self-disclosure suggest that sex is a variable which should always be considered in self-disclosure research. 48 The effect probably holds true for individuals and in groups, as well as in a dyadic situation. Prior Knowing. It was disappointing not to replicate previous findings on the variable of prior knowing, and perhaps the measure used in this study was too crude for an accurate assessment. Prior knowing scores in this study were obtained by combining the numbers of statements marked 1 and 2 for each S. A score of one reflects that £ "has told the other something about this aspect of me" and 2 means S "has told the other everything about this aspect of me." Perhaps rather than combining these two scores for a total, level of prior knowing might be determined for only items scored 2. Thus intimate and non-intimate friendships could be distinguished. Or, perhaps more levels of prior knowing could be constructed. The prior knowing effect has been obtained once in dyads and once in groups. Certainly, the "getting to know you" effect has most relevance to groups, but the concept needs further validation. Disclosure. The personal revelation task demand is clearly a useful tool for manipulating self-disclosure in other research. A need exists for a more detailed analysis of disclosures than the one used here of personal and impersonal statements. A qualitative classification of personal statements or self-disclosures would give useful clues about how Ss react to task demands. Such categories 49 could be used as affective vs. factual disclosure or posi tive vs. negative self-revelation. A more direct approach to the question of how disclo sure influences psychological health could be to use dis closure as an independent variable. To do this Ss could be required to make statements about certain aspects of them selves. Other studies have used prepared disclosure topics scaled for level of intimacy (Taylor & Allman, 1966; Gary & Hammond, 1970) and this seems a fruitful approach. Need-for-Approval. Need-for-approval is an excellent research variable. However, its relationship to self disclosure in various populations has not been studied sufficiently in similar populations and situations. The present study has added to this knowledge, but there is much to be done. In future research relating need-for-approval and self-disclosure, qualitative analysis of disclosures should prove important in distinguishing the behavior of high and low need-for-approval groups. Also, conditions with higher threat to self-esteem than the present study should differ entiate better between levels of need-for-approval. It appears that the present study did not elicit defensive behavior on the part of high need-for-approval £s. Experimental Conditions. The conditions in the present study were satisfactory in manipulating levels of self disclosure. However, there was little difference in the 50 amounts of self-disclosure in the personal revelation and psychotherapy conditions. It is suggested for future researchers that efforts be made to make the psychotherapy situation more "real." Perhaps an experimental confederate could serve as a "therapist," and an even greater emphasis could be placed on talking about problems and feelings rather than tangential subjects. Psychological Health. The biggest flaw in the method ology of the present experiment was the assumption that one 15-minute session would be enough to produce changes in the reported level of a person's psychological health. The brevity of the session probably accounts for the fact that no overall changes in self-actualizing tendencies were found. Extending the conditions over several sessions would increase the chances of finding reliable differences resulting from the experimental treatment. However, in the present study other questions of importance were being answered and the methodology was being established. Future investigations of similar variables certainly should increase the quantity of the treatment in order to get a more valid personality measure of psychological health. Two weeks was allowed between pre- and post-testing. There is no way of knowing whether this length of time is appropriate. Effects of multiple testing with this instru ment is perhaps an area of further study. 51 Summary It was found that sex and task demands had the most influence on self-disclosing behavior in the present study. Sex thus becomes a factor to consider in self-disclosure research and in constructing self-disclosure situations. Ss in the present study perceived the task demands of self disclosure and simulated psychotherapy as being identical. This suggests that indeed self-disclosure is an important activity to be able to influence in professional mental health practice. It also suggests that people will respond to both direct and implied demands to self-disclose. Although information was obtained about the self- disclosing behavior of various levels of need-for-approval Ss, it is not clear without further research how the pres ent findings integrate with the existing body of work on need-for-approval. Replication of findings that people must risk disclosure in order to receive it was not achieved. This may be because the present study is not sufficiently comparable to those already done, specifically in the respect that disclosure was actively manipulated in the present study. Psychological health was not generally changed as a result of either task demands or self-disclosure activity. It appears the present study delineates a method for fur ther study of how pwychological health can be changed, but probably was not a fair test of the question since the experimental sessions were so short. However, the results were encouraging for further investigation of the effects of self-disclosure upon psychological health in varying task demands. 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Creator Davis, Terry Serfass (author)

Core Title Relationship Of Personality And Task Demands To Self-Disclosing Behavior And Psychological Health

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Psychology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,psychology, clinical

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Berger, Stephen E. (committee chair), London, Perry (committee member), Schrader, Don R. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-792153

Unique identifier UC11363524

Identifier 7314396.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-792153 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 7314396

Dmrecord 792153

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Davis, Terry Serfass

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA