Self-disclosure and Closeness in Relationships

Student's Name_______________________

Complete the following exercise on your own after you complete the "Getting to Know Each Other" exercise with your assigned partner. Answer the questions by referring to the introduction and the description of Study 1 in the article by Aron and colleagues (1997) and by referring to the description and data of Study 2 described in this exercise. You do not need to read Studies 2 and 3 in the article by Aron and colleagues (1997) to answer these questions. Contact Dr. Gorman if you have any questions.

Step 1: Using the Rutgers University Library proxy server, locate the article "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A procedure and some preliminary findings " by Arthur Aron, Edward Melinat, Elaine N. Aron, Robert Darrin Vallone and Renee J. Bator published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 1997.

Imagine you have cited this research article in a paper. Show the entry for this article that would be included in the reference list using APA format.

Arthur Aron, Edward Melinat, Elaine N. Aron, Robert Darrin Vallone and Renee J. Bator (published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 1997)

Step 2: Read the introduction of the article "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness" by Aron and colleagues. Use the introduction of this article and your understanding of research methods in psychology to answer the following questions. If you quote the article, be sure to include a citation with the page number of the source as per APA format.

Aron and colleagues (1997) state that the limitation of past research is that, "the existence of a close relationship, the characteristics of its members, or the circumstances under which the relationship developed are not subject to experimental manipulation" (p. 363) What are the critical features of an experiment and what is the advantage of using an experiment to gather information about how variables are related?

Step 3: Continue reading Study 1 in Aron et al.'s (1997) article to answer the questions.

What is the independent variable of study 1 described in the article? Describe how the experimental manipulation of this independent variable was carried out.

What was the dependent variable of study 1 described in the article? Describe how it was measured.

Draw a bar graph below that represents the mean amount of closeness reported among participants in the closeness condition and the small-talk condition. Be sure to label the x and y axes of the graph appropriately.

Looking at the graph above, does it appear that the independent variable had an effect on the dependent variable? In your own words, describe what the relationship was between the independent variable and the dependent variable of this study.

Step 4: Use the information in the description below to complete the following questions.

Study 2

A social psychology professor examined whether self-disclosure between pairs of students would increase feelings of closeness towards their partners. Students were randomly-assigned to partners and were asked to complete a modified version of Aron et al.'s (1997) self-disclosure task, consisting of three sets of questions that gradually increased in intensity of self-disclosure. Feelings of closeness towards one's partner were measured before and after self-disclosure by having students complete the Inclusion of Other in Self Scale (Aron et al., 1992), which consisted of 7 sets of circles labeled Self and Other that increasingly overlapped to create an interval scale. Change in closeness was calculated by subtracting the first measure of closeness from the measure of closeness reported after self-disclosure. Measures of how students would feel if they were assigned to work with their partner on a group project was also recorded on a 5-point interval scale, which asked participants to indicate how happy and anxious they would feel if they were assigned to work with this partner on a group project. The table below lists the change in closeness experienced after self-disclosure, how anxious participants felt to work with their partner before self-disclosure, and how happy participants felt to work with their partner after self-disclosure.