On the Ability to Elicit Self-Disclosure: Are there Gender-Based and Contextual Limitations on the Opener Effect?

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Abstract
Previous work with Miller; Berg, and Archer's Opener Scale has shown that females who score high on the opener dimension are more proficient than those who score low at eliciting self-disclosure from conversational partners. The present study tests the generality of this "opener effect" to males and across different context. It was expected that the opener effect would be most apparent in contexts where people are normally reluctant to self-disclose (i.e., when instrumental motives are salient for females and when social/expressive motives are salient for males). However, high opener interviewers of each sex elicited longer and more intimate self-disclosures than low-opener interviewers, and this opener effect was not moderated by situational context. Further analyses of interviewer behaviors suggested that high openers were the more successful at eliciting self-disclosure because they were more inclined to seek information through verbal prompts that encourage intimate revelations.

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