The effects of a recipient's openness and conveyance to a third party of the self-disclosure on changes in the discloser's liking and self-disclosure

One hundred and ninety-nine university students (101 males, 98 females) served in a study designed to examine various factors affecting a discloser's degree of liking of and self-disclosure to a recipient. Specifically, the effects of (1) the recipient's degree of openness (high, low), (2) whether or not the recipient conveyed the discloser's self-disclosure to a third party (yes, no), and (3) the intimacy of self-disclosure by the discloser (high, low) were assessed in terms of (a) change in self-disclosure by the discloser and (b) change in liking by the discloser. Results confirmed the hypotheses that: (1) the degree of openness of the recipient and the conveyance of self-disclosure by the recipient would interact with change in the discloser's liking of and self-disclosure to the recipient, and, (2) the degree of openness of the recipient and the intimacy of self-disclosure would interact with change in the discloser's liking of and self-disclosure to the recipient. Moreover, females were found to be more sensitive than males to conveyance by the recipient.