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To Tell or not to Tell? An Examination of Stepparents' Communication Privacy Management

This study examined stepparents' privacy boundary management when engaging in communicative interactions with stepchildren. I utilized Petronio's communication privacy management theory to investigate stepparents' motivations of disclosing or concealing from stepchildren as well as how stepparents' gender influences such motivations. Moreover, present research also explored types of privacy dilemma within stepfamily households from stepparent perspectives. Fifteen stepfathers and 15 stepmothers received in-depth interviews about their self-disclosing and concealment experiences with stepchildren. I identified confidant dilemma and accidental dilemma in stepfamily households from stepparents' perspectives, as well as stepparents' gender differences in self-disclosing and concealing motivations. Findings also suggest that stepparents reveal and conceal from stepchildren out of same motivations: establishing good relationships, viewing stepchildren as own children, helping stepchildren with problems resulting from the divorce and viewing stepchildren as "others." The result also indicates that stepparents experienced dialectical tensions between closedness and openness during the decision of revealing or concealing from stepchildren.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc30470
Date08 1900
CreatorsHsu, Tsai-chen
ContributorsAnderson, Karen A., Allison, John M., Jr., Richardson, Brian K.
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formatiii, 70 p., Text
RightsPublic, Copyright, Hsu, Tsai-chen, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

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