The information can be descriptive or evaluative, and can include thoughts, feelings, aspirations, goals, failures, successes, fears, and dreams, as well as one's likes, dislikes, and favorites.
It is easier for breadth to be expanded first in a relationship because of its more accessible features; it consists of outer layers of personality and everyday lives, such as occupations and preferences.
while emotional disclosures reveal a person's feelings, thoughts and judgments (e.g., "My divorce was so painful it has made it difficult for me to trust a romantic partner again").
[1] Whether or not one sex shares more readily is a heated debate in social psychology, but sex-role identities play a large part in the amount one chooses to reveal to another.
[1] Motivation for disclosure is also critical: does the individual need to present themself in a certain way in order to gain certain benefits, and does the self-disclosure match the person's sense of ideal self?
It is speculated that these results come about because a strained relationship causes spouses to restrict their topics of communication (breadth), but that they are also more willing to discuss deeply intimate subjects: the negative ones.
Some speculate that disclosures and their respective responses from a spouse lead to intimacy between the partners, and these exchanges accumulate into global and positive evaluations of the relationship by the couple.
According to Altman, a quiet, dimly lit sit-down restaurant might make one more willing to open up to others rather than uncomfortable seating in a loud food joint.
Immediate disclosure shows positive views of the therapeutic process in which the two are engaging and communicates self-involving feelings and information about the therapist's professional background.
Intersubjective and relational schools of thought encourage disclosure due to its ability to bring subjectivity into therapy, which they deem a necessary element to real healing.
In order for existential psychologists to help clients, they try to disclose their own coping methods to serve as sources of inspiration to find one's own answers to questions of life.
Clearly, today's therapists are mostly supportive of disclosure in therapy, as the early psychoanalytic taboo of such is slowly being overridden through the recognition of many schools of thought.
Further, expressing emotions lessens the toll of the autonomic nervous system and has been shown in several studies to improve overall physical health in this way.
Unwanted, recurrent thoughts, feelings of anxiousness and depression, sleeping problems, and many other physiological, psychological, and physical issues have been seen as the results of withholding important information from others.
Further, a room should not be too crowded nor too small in order to foster good disclosures from the client[1] The efficacy of self-disclosure is widely debated by researchers, and findings have yielded a variety of results, both positive and negative.
In cases of a therapist needing to provide feedback, self-involving statements are nearly inevitable, for they must state a true opinion of what the client has disclosed.
Largely, the use of self-involving statements by therapists is seen as a way of making the interaction more authentic for the client, and such exchanges can have a great impact on the success of the treatment at hand.
[31] Given that self-disclosure is related to husband's ratings of marital satisfaction, teaching proper ways for a couple to disclose to one another might be a very beneficial skill therapists can use both for prevention and treatment in therapy sessions.
Biological development, cultural and social pressures, and individual maturity determine these issues, and, thus, a child's age, personality, and background also contribute to their level and need of self-disclosure in a relationship with a parent.
[34] Also, gender contributes: girls are noted for usually disclosing their problems, mostly to their mothers, while boys reveal more about bad grades, behavioral conflicts, and other issues to both parents.
Thus, if parents are characterized as good listeners, trustworthy, accepting, relaxed, and sympathetic, as are high openers, then they will likely elicit more disclosure from their children.
[32] The adolescents have been found to feel the most obligation to tell their parents about such activities as drinking and smoking but less need to disclose information about personal issues.
Some consequences of deindividuation include the reduced ability to control one's behavior and engage in rational, long-term planning, and the tendency to react immediately and emotionally.
In this exchange, Internet users start their relationships with relatively high control and gradually trade that for physical closeness as their comfort levels and knowledge of the other person increases.
In light of these fears, social media can provide a safe environment for people with low self-esteem to disclose personal information because they cannot see their partner's reactions which can help them to more freely express themselves.
Many social networking sites give access to profiles, pictures and the ability to comment and message others which helps people to feel less lonely.
Therefore, disclosing with others online gives a socially anxious person access to a wide variety of people with which they can form relationships and belong to a group.
[48] The Internet, while providing most with a source of entertainment, knowledge, and social realms, is actually a large threat to children due to the ways in which they self-disclose.
Studies have found that, if applied to the use of the Internet by children and their likelihood to disclose personal information, one can find significant correlations with various types of motivation.
Even in online education settings, students will tend to disclose personal information or traumatic experience to faculty to seek support.