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Self-Disclosure

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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Synonyms

Openness

Definition

Self-disclosure is a process of communication through which one person reveals information about himself or herself to another (Sprecher et al. 2013). It includes everything an individual chooses to tell the other person about himself or herself. Specifically, the information disclosed can be descriptive or evaluative and can vary, for example, from thoughts, feelings, and goals to failures and dislikes (Ignatius and Kokkonen 2007).

Introduction

The process of self-disclosure, when people share personal information about themselves to another, aids the development and sustainment of social relationships (Sprecher et al. 2013). That is, people who have higher levels of self-disclosure, thus share more intimate details, are in general more liked by the people they interact with (Collins and Miller 1994). However, this process is not a one-way street; one of the most important factors in the process of self-disclosure is reciprocation; both in initial...

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References

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Correspondence to Celine van Golde .

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van Golde, C. (2017). Self-Disclosure. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1502-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1502-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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