This study explores the phenomenon of therapists’ verbal self-disclosure in the therapeutic encounter. The purpose is to examine the clients’ experiences and attitudes on therapists’ verbal self-disclosure, when the clients are counselling psychology trainees or newly qualified counselling psychologists. The present study will attempt to discover what the participants believe constitutes self-disclosure and how influential their therapists’ verbal self-disclosure or lack of it, has been in the development of their personal and professional stance on self-disclosure in their own work with clients. Since the researcher is interested in clients who themselves are developing counselling psychologists, the study sheds light on how their therapists’ verbal disclosure (or lack of it) influences their developing professional identity. The majority of studies exploring therapists’ self-disclosure have favoured quantitative methodologies; however, a case can be made for using a qualitative phenomenological approach to explore this phenomenon on the grounds that it provides a more detailed representation of the experience and allows for an in-depth phenomenological understanding of the complexity and content of self-disclosure. Nine developing counselling psychologists were interviewed for this study and the three major findings of the study are that a) developing counselling psychologists, influenced by their own personal therapy, do engage in counter-transference self-disclosure, b) the decision to engage in self-disclosure or not is made upon their intuition and ‘gut feeling’ and c) although training institutions or supervisors might not encourage self-disclosure, participants still engage in it. These findings raise questions concerning the role of training versus the role of personal therapy in shaping trainees’ client work, as well as issues regarding the reasons why they chose to self-disclose or not and the role of intuition.

Master of Science / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Melinda S. Markham / Interpersonal aspects of a relationship (i.e., equality, trust, disclosure, etc.) as they relate to finances have important implications for marital satisfaction; however, emphasis on financial transparency, “the open and honest disclosure of one’s finances,” has yet to be researched. To increase our capacity to study the role of finances in the marital relationship, the purpose of this study was to develop the Financial Transparency Scale (FTS) to assess financial transparency between married partners. A sample of 183 married individuals in their first 5 years of their first marriage completed an online survey, consisting of the FTS and four related scales. Principal components analysis (PCA) was conducted to determine the FTS is comprised of three components: financial partnership, financial secrecy, and financial trust and disclosure of the individual partner. The first component, financial partnership (eigenvalue = 10.909), consisted of 18 items and accounted for 41.96% of the variance and had a high internal reliability of (α = .95). Component 2, financial secrecy (eigenvalue = 2.845), consisted of three items and accounted for 10.94% of variance with an internal reliability of (α = .93). Component 3, financial trust and disclosure of the individual partner (eigenvalue = 1.76), consisted of five items and accounted for 6.77% of total variance with an internal reliability (α = .83). The FTS was positively correlated with four related scales: the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale, the Shared Goals and Values Scale, the Frequency of Financial Management Scale, and the Communication Patterns Questionnaire – Short Form, each of which are key behaviors of financial and marital satisfaction. The FTS will benefit financial practitioners as they can use the scale to determine the level of financial transparency between married individuals, drawing attention to areas of concern such as financial secrecy between partners. For researchers, this scale provides a measurement for a sophisticated perspective on the interpersonal factors that mediate financial transparency between married individuals.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology / Stephen L. Benton / This study examined the effects of types of therapist disclosure and their interaction with various combinations of observer, therapist, and client gender-dyads on observer ratings of the working alliance. Participants were 357 undergraduate students (60.2% women) from two Midwestern universities who were randomly assigned to one of 12 conditions. Each condition required students to read one of 12 printed scenarios differentiated by all possible combinations of three types of therapist self-disclosure (similar, dissimilar, no disclosure), two levels of therapist gender, and two levels of client gender. Students rated the scenarios on the perceived working alliance between the therapist and the client, using the 36-item Working Alliance Inventory-Observer (WAI-O). A 2 (student sex) x 2 (therapist sex) x 2 (client sex) x 3 (disclosure type) ANOVA revealed no significant effects on the WAI-O total scale score. In addition, no main effects or interactions were found on WAI-O total scale when male and female student scores were pooled. A 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 MANOVA performed on the WAI-O subscales indicated female observers perceived a stronger client-therapist bond for similar than dissimilar disclosures with male clients. Female observers rated male clients with a stronger bond than female clients, but only in the similar disclosure condition. A main effect was also found for observer sex on the Task and Bond subscales. Although this study did not find gender of the observer, type of therapist disclosure, and the gender of the therapist and their client to influence overall working alliance ratings, results suggest that these factors have an impact on female observer ratings of the bond and task agreement between the therapist and their client. Specifically, two findings emerged: (a) women, not men, observed a stronger bond for male client recipients of similar versus dissimilar disclosure; (b) women, not men observed a stronger bond for male client versus female recipients of a therapist's similar disclosure. Results are discussed in terms of disclosure and gender research.

This thesis presents a series of cross-cultural experiments, which investigate the role of self-awareness on self-disclosure in computer-mediated communication (CMC). The thesis is split into two parts, detailing the results of four separate experiments. In Part 1, the two experiments focus specifically on British participants who are considered to be from an individualistic culture. Experiment 1 investigates how private and public self-awareness affects their breadth, depth and accuracy of self-disclosure in CMC. Experiment 2 then attempts to simplify Experiment 1 to try and focus more specifically on personal motivations of self-disclosure. The results of the first two experiments clearly illustrate the importance of both private and public self-awareness in intimate self-disclosure in CMC. More specifically, they indicate that increasing private self-awareness increases depth of self-disclosure, whilst increasing public self-awareness reduces the accuracy of the self-disclosure. In Part 2 of the thesis Experiments 1 and 2 are replicated on Singaporean participants, who are considered to be from a collectivist culture. Members of collectivist cultures are consistently reported to self-disclose less than members of individualistic cultures. It is however found in Experiment 3 that in a typical 'real-time' interaction the Singaporeans report themselves to self-disclose to a greater depth than the British participants. Cultural differences are also found in the participants' reactions to certain manipulations of self-awareness. More specifically, a manipulation that increases public self-awareness greatly reduces the British participants' self-disclosure. Whilst the Singaporeans are more affected by a manipulation that increases their private self-awareness, which greatly increases their depth of self-disclosure. It is concluded that there are cultural differences in the way that people react to manipulations of self-awareness in CMC and this raises philosophical discussion about how culture drives self-disclosure which, in turn, drives the pursuit of self-knowledge, and ultimately the construction of the cultural self. Finally it is concluded that CMC may allow an exploration of the self outside of cultural norms, and that this could potentially change the boundaries of the private and public self in the future.

Experimenter self-disclosure and verbal reinforcement of subject disclosure during an interview were both predicted to result in increased subject disclosure in a subsequent testing situation, as compared with direct instructions to the subjects to be more open.. The results indicated that for male subjects, verbal reinforcement had the predicted effect, but experimenter self-disclosure did not. Female subjects were found to be more disclosive than male subjects in general, but were relatively uninfluenced by the experimenter treatment conditions. Experimenter self-disclosure was shown to result in an increase in social evaluative anxiety and in more favourable perceptions of the self and of the experimenter in the subjects concerned. Both of these factors are discussed as having counteracted any modeling effect of experimenter self-disclosure. An interpretation of the results in terms of an interaction between subject sex, experimenter sex and experimental conditions is proposed and the implications this has for the related literature, which in general has ignored such variables as subject and experimenter sex, are discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

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This study will further the base of research concerned with the phenomenon of self-esteem and its relationship to self-disclosure. The view one has of self significantly affects attitudes, behaviors, evaluations, and cognitive processes. By correlating the self-esteem measure with a pen and paper measure of self-disclosure, and a behavioral measure of self-disclosure, we will have a better understanding of the relationship self-esteem has in regulating or influencing what we disclose of ourselves to others. Also, we can determine if one's reported disclosures are a measurement of one's actual disclosures. This study examined whether self-esteem influences an individual's readiness to self-disclose. It would make intuitive sense that we should seek to understand conditions that affect the degree to which individuals are more or less likely to disclose information about themselves. In this way, we will be better equipped to promote and maintain relationships. Research has suggested that disclosure promotes relational growth. If we better understand the conditions that affect levels of disclosure, we can establish deeper, more committed relations with others, as well as communicate more effectively. Self-esteem refers to an individual's personal judgement of his or her worth. This construct was operationalized by using the Index of Self-Esteem, ISE. Self-disclosure is any message about the self that a person communicates to another. It implies that in some situations an individual chooses how much or how little to divulge. This construct was operationalized by using Viii the Disclosiveness/Disclosure Scale-RSDS, and also by having subjects rate their actual disclosures: BSDl - openness; BSD2 - comfort; and BSD3 - level (See Appendices A,B,& C).

Prior research suggests that rejection sensitive individuals may find it easier to express their true selves in an online environment. The purpose of the present study was to further examine the influence of true self, which is who a person believes he or she truly is, on the relationship between rejection sensitivity and online dating site usage. Additionally, the present study investigated the role of self-disclosure in online dating site usage. Five-hundred sixty one participants completed an online survey. Consistent with prior research, results indicated that rejection sensitivity and true self predicted online dating site usage. Further, true self partially mediated the relationship between rejection sensitivity and online dating site usage. Self-disclosure in online environments, however, did not influence the relationship between rejection sensitivity and online dating site use. In addition, for those who engaged in online dating, rejection sensitivity was not related to self-disclosure in online dating profiles or in communicating with individuals met through online dating sites. True self, though, was related to both self-disclosure in online dating profiles and in communication with those met through online dating sites. These findings suggest that rejection sensitive individuals are more likely to engage in online dating because it may facilitate representation of their “true” selves. Furthermore, rejection sensitivity may not facilitate individuals’ self-disclosure in online environments, whereas the desire to share one’s “true” self may facilitate self-disclosure in online environments.

Prior research suggests that rejection sensitive individuals may find it easier to express their true selves in an online environment. The purpose of the present study was to examine the extent to which rejection sensitivity (RS) and true self influence self-disclosure within the context of online dating. We collected data from a total of 1,295 individuals who completed an online survey. For those who engaged in online dating, RS was not directly related to self-disclosure in online dating profiles or in communicating with individuals met through online dating sites/apps, but true self was. In addition, there was an indirect relationship between RS and self-disclosure in the context of online dating through true self. These findings suggest that rejection sensitive individuals who feel more comfortable revealing aspects of their "true"selves online may be more likely to engage in self-disclosure within the context of online dating, which could potentially offer some clue as to why rejection sensitive individuals may be somewhat more likely to engage in online dating than less rejection sensitive individuals. That is, rejection sensitive individuals are perhaps more likely to engage in online dating because it may facilitate representation of their "true"selves and may thus increase dating success.