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Open Up Your Self-Disclosure:
Zach Dillender
University of Kentucky

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Abstract
Self-disclosure is when you communicate personal information about yourself to others. It is something we should all be aware of. You don't want to scare someone you care about away from telling them too much personal stuff about yourself, however at the same time you don't want to not tell them personal things that could possibly bring you all closer together. It is very important to share your beliefs and ideas, but communicating them to another can be an issue.
This paper will look at research presented from many sources that will identify how selfdisclosure can be tested and maintained in romantic relationships. The result from the research shows that there are many ways that our self-disclosure can be modified. One of the areas that should be expanded upon for future research is from longer trails runs for the relational couples.
Keywords: self-disclosure, romance, relationships, communication, research

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Open Up Your Self-Disclosure:
Self-disclosure is when you communicate private information about yourself to someone else. It shows someone who you really are in small doses and reveals your personal opinions, goals, ideas, feelings and philosophy. This can lead to positive and negative effects in a relationship. The three themes that I found through the communication studies are audience, fear, and intent. It is very important to know this information because it is important for you to communicate to people who you really are. So how much self-disclosure is good for romantic relationships?
Audience
Audience is the first major theme I noticed in the research. This includes whom you are self-disclosing to. In the research it showed a major difference in the results based on the person you are telling the information to. There were different results based on genders and how intimate you are with them. Since my topic is about romantic relationships, the audiences I will focus more on is relational partners and less on peer groups. According to Derlega, Winstead,
Mathews, & Braitman (2008), most people perceive close relationships as a safe place . This means that it is much easier for people to use self-disclosure in romantic relationships than in any other relationships such as your peers. So naturally it is much easier for self-disclosure to occur within relationships.
The research is much different when it comes to disclosing in your peer groups as Myers
& Johnson (2004), discuss that the perceived act of self-disclosure did not differ significantly among information collegial, and special peers. This finding is a little surprising, given that generally, more intimate romantic relationships are characterize by a greater breadth and depth of disclosure than less relationships. Breadth describes the range of subjects being discussed while

OPEN UP 4 depth describes the shift from relatively impersonal messages to more personal ones. This is called the Social Penetration Model that states that more breadth and depth of self-disclosure that is discussed in a relationship will produce a more intimate relationship (Adler & Proctor II,
2013). From this information you can conclude that the audience is a huge factor because you will disclose more with an intimate partner than with some of your close peers in your peer groups.
Another element of the audience is the environment that you are in. This is stated by
( Weber, Johnson & Corrigan 2004), when they mention that the amount of self-disclosure that individuals engage in may be dependent upon their predisposition to disclose or the environment in which they find themselves. For example, some people are less comfortable to discuss subjects with their romantic partner in a public environment with others around as compared to a private environment where it would just be the two partners. As an alternative to the finding the right environment to disclose, Fogel (2011), found that a lot of young adults in modern times are choosing to self-disclose to their romantic partners through instant messages such as texts.
Through instant messages the environment is unnecessary, but the original intent of the disclosure will still be clear.
Intent & Amount
This section will explain how the intent and amount of the self-disclosure can create different outcomes from it. Intent is another huge factor of self-disclosure because you can really mean to help a relationship or mean to destroy one by your disclosing. Myers, & Johnson (2004), say the reasons behind self-disclosure with an organizational peer may be more salient than the type of organizational peer whom the self-disclosure is occurring. In this statement the behind part is identifying the intent, as it is saying that the intent behind your disclosing can be a more

OPEN UP 5 important factor than the audience. This is because the intention of the self-disclosure is why you are choosing to reveal this personal information with someone. In romantic relationships the intent is usually for relational maintenance, or communication that keeps relationships running smoothly and satisfactorily (Adler & Proctor II). Usually the information that is being disclosed has the intent to be positive such as telling a romantic partner how you feel about them. It can also be a negative statement that can describe something that you might not like about a relationship. These negative statements of self-disclosure tend to lead to conflict within the relationship (Loveless, Powers, & Jordan, 2008). Negative statements are still important when it comes to relational maintenance because you want to be able to fix the things in a romantic relationship that you might not be comfortable with. An example of this is if your romantic partner smokes or chews tobacco and you are not aware of it until they self-disclosure it to you one day. You might either except their habit or ask them to fix it, but either way the intent will make an impact on the relationship. ( Weber, Johnson, & Corrigan, 2004) mention that for young adults, amount of self-disclosure was positively related to communication satisfaction. This directly describes what the amount and intent of disclosure are mostly directed for which is overall satisfaction of communication between you and the person you self-disclosed too. You have to be careful of the amount of information that you are telling someone. This is something everyone has to consider because some things about yourself, you should simply keep private to avoid having someone change their perception of you in a negative light. This leads to why people are afraid of self-disclosure.
Fears of Self-disclosure
A major point that was brought up in every single research viewed on self-disclosure is just how scared people are of opening up. There are many identifiable results of fear in these

OPEN UP 6 studies. As mentioned earlier in this paper, Myers & Johnson (2004), discussed that most subjects in their studies reported that they felt more comfortable with self-disclosing in romantic relationships than in their peer group relationships. ( Derlega, Winstead, Mathews & Braitman,
2008) report that there was an interpersonal focus in the attributions mentioned for not disclosing to the relationship targets. Fear of losing the other’s respect was frequently mentioned as a reason for nondisclosure. Interestingly, with the exception of dating partner, participants infrequently mentioned putting the relationship at risk as a reason for not disclosing to various partners. This made a great point with close relationships and the fear of disclosing in them.
Most people are simply afraid to tell someone they are really intimate with what they think or feel. According to Adler & Proctor II (2013), the main risk of self-disclosure includes rejection, negative impression, decrease in relational satisfaction, loss of influence and hurting the other person. All of these factors can prevent someone from being honest about how they feel or who they really are with their romantic partners. Personally I am a great example of this.
My senior year of high school I became close with a girl that I worked with and we had been friends for a couple of years. We ended up going to prom together and I always had a feeling she liked me but was never sure. I was always afraid to tell her how I really felt about her and had multiple opportunities to, but the risk of possibly losing her and being made fun of at my work place prevented me from sharing my true intentions. To this day we are not together and I hardly see her and it hurts that I did not self-disclose my feelings to her. The conclusion of this can be to not be afraid of self-disclosure because in the end you might just regret not doing it.
Research Evaluation

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There were a lot of different findings that I discovered in these studies. The first is that the audience or the person that you are disclosing to makes the world of a difference. Some believe that your romantic partner or close friends would be the easiest to do this around. Others believe that random people are actually easier. I can see this because this is when the fear of selfdisclosing comes in. I have found that one of the biggest problems of self-disclosure is that people are simply afraid of doing it. This is because they believe the risks involved are too great and might cause the relationship to become worse or end. Lastly, I discovered that most selfdisclosure is never intended to be negative and the intent of it is usually for communication satisfaction.
As for the research itself, most of it was effective and well written. I also enjoyed that many of the studies were up to date with current technology and modern society. I think that the overall subject of self-disclosure could have been expanded upon more in some of the studies and that some of the results could have been stated clearer. Most of the limitations in the studies came from not being able to study a big enough population and not being able to study the subjects for long periods of time to see how the relationships actually turned out. Another factor that could be mentioned more is how self-disclosure can lead to romantic relationships before they officially exist.
Conclusion
Future directions that could expand this research would include longer studies that could take place over months or years. This would allow scholars to see the long-term effects of selfdisclosure. Another way they could improve new research is to study effects of self-disclosing in friendships that become romantic relationships. The research questions could be what are the

OPEN UP 8 long-term effects of self-disclosure? Or what happens to relationships that do not include enough self-disclosure among partners?
So my question posed was how much self-disclosure is good for a romantic relationship?
The answer I have found through the research is a decent amount. You need good intentions when you are disclosing, along with the right environment that suits you. Also you must make sure your partner is the right person that you want to tell the information to because they could not be suited for it. You cannot be afraid to self-disclosure because it is healthy for a relationship and can actually be very positive for it.

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References
Alder, R., & Proctor, R. (2013). Looking Out, Looking In University of Kentucky:
Cengage Learning
Derlega, V. J., Winstead, B. A., Mathews, A., & Braitman, A. L. (2008). Why Does
Someone Reveal Highly Personal Information? Attributions for and against Self-Disclosure in Close Relationships. Communication Research Reports , 25 (2), 115-130. doi:10.1080/08824090802021756
Fogel, J. (2011). INSTANT MESSAGING COMMUNICATION: SELF-
DISCLOSURE, INTIMACY, AND DISINHIBITION. Journal Of Communications
Research, 2(1), 13-19.
Loveless, M., Powers, W. G., & Jordan, W. (2008). Dating Partner Communication
Apprehension, Self Disclosure, and the First Big Fight. Human Communication , 11 (2), 231-
239.
Myers, S. A., & Johnson, A. D. (2004). Perceived Solidarity, Self-Disclosure, and Trust in Organizational Peer Relationships. Communication Research Reports , 21 (1), 75-83.
Weber, K., Johnson, A., & Corrigan, M. (2004). Communication Emotional Support and its Relationship to Feelings of Being Understood, Trust, and Self-Disclosure. Communication
Research Reports , 21 (3), 316-323.