Close Relationships Laboratory

Research

Self-Disclosure

Self-disclosure, or opening up about your thoughts and feelings, is one of the keys to the establishment of close relationships with others. Our lab's interest in self-disclosure stemmed from the idea that getting couples to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about their relationship might help them become more disclosing with their partners, in turn strengthening their relationship. This hypothesis was supported by a study we conducted of committed dating couples (Slatcher & Pennebaker, 2006). Relationship writing led to greater relationship stability (they stayed together longer) and brought about a number of changes in the ways partners “spoke” to each other in their daily Instant Messages (IMs), with increases in couples’ use of positive and negative emotion words. These word use changes helped explain why couples who wrote about their relationships were more stable. You can read more about this research in media coverage on MSNBC.

Currently, our lab is examining the links between self-disclosure and relationship quality and stability using daily diary methods and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) via an acoustic event-sampling device called the Electronically Activated Recorder (or EAR). Using these methods, we are investigating the process of self-disclosure in couples’ everyday interactions. We also are examining how spouses' self-disclosures to each other can positively impact their relationships with their adolescent children. In other words, when a parent opens up to his or her spouse about his/her thoughts and feelings, this appears to be beneficial to the parent-child relationship.

In addition, we are conducting lab studies (e.g., Slatcher, 2010) in which we manipulate levels of self-disclosure between unacquainted pairs of couples. We are finding that couples in the high-disclosure condition feel much closer to the couples they meet in the lab and to their own partners following the interaction compared to couples in the low-disclosure condition. Although correlational studies have shown that couples who have a larger percentage of shared friends (vs. individual friends) tend to have happier and longer-lasting relationships, it has been unclear whether social networks have an inherent benefit for couples or just that people who are happier in their relationships are more likely to make friendships with others together as a couple. These studies are allowing us to test the causal direction of the association between shared friendships and relationship quality and the mechanisms underlying this association. You can read more about this research in media coverage from The Wall Street Journal and Time.

There are implications of this research for understanding intergroup processes as well. In collaboration with Art Aron, Stephen Wright and Jennifer Eberhart, we are conducting a series of experiments at WSU in which we use the closeness-induction paradigm to promote cross-ethnicity closeness among couples of different ethnicities. That is, for example, having an African American and a Latino couple go through a closeness-induction experiment should lessen cross-ethnicity anxiety, because each person has his or her partner as comfort and support and the two couples have their coupleness in common.

Finally, we are investigating how self-disclosing to your romantic partner can affect your health and your child's health. To read more about this research, click here.