On sex differences in self-disclosure during the acquaintance process: The role of anticipated future interaction.

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Abstract
In Exp I, 48 female and 48 male undergraduates who either anticipated or did not anticipate further interaction with a same-sex confederate, alternated with that person in disclosing private information on 4 personal topics. The confederate spoke first on each topic, presenting either highly intimate or nonintimate information in response to all 4 issues. Content analyses revealed that as hypothesized, males became more intimate and emotionally invested in their disclosures when they expected to interact with their partners in the future. By contrast, females showed an unexpected decline in the intimacy and emotional investment of their self-presentations when expecting further interaction with their partners, and they were actually somewhat less self-revealing under this circumstance than were males. Supplementary data suggest that females' reluctance to disclose intimately to a partner with whom they expected further interaction did not stem from problems in their contemporaneous interpersonal relationships with this individual. The avoidance of intimacy and an evaluation hypothesis received support as proposed explanations for the dampening effect of anticipated future interaction on female self-disclosure in a 2nd experiment involving 26 female and 20 male undergraduates. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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