Differences in willingness to self-disclose: As a function of country and sex

This study compared self-disclosure patterns of people from Peru and The United Sates, and examined the extent to which men and women from both countries were willing to self-disclose about personal experiences with typical sources.; For this study the Willingness to Self-Disclose Emotion Scale (WSDES) was developed for participants to rate their willingness to self-disclose. This scale included five communication acts or levels of disclosure, on a 1--5 scale, measuring the amount of information and emotion disclosed.; In Part 1 of the main study, paired scenarios about a happy event and a sad event were used as stimuli to elicit self disclosure both to a relative and to a best friend. Independent variables included (a) country (Peru versus The United States), (b) sex (male versus female), (c) mood (happy versus sad event), and (d) recipient of disclosure (family versus friends). Participants in this study included 175 students from Peru and 245 students from United States. Data was analyzed using mixed ANOVAS.; A preliminary validity assessment study showed that the WSDES possessed good psychometric properties: (a) the WSDES moderately correlated with an established scale measuring emotional expressiveness, (b) test-retest reliability of the WSDES yielded a high correlation coefficient, and (c) results supported the hypothesis that the WSDES was a monotonic scale of self-disclosure (for scenarios employed in the main study). In addition, Part 2 of the main study showed that higher levels of disclosure were evaluated more favorably than lower levels of disclosure.; As predicted, results of the main study (Part 1) indicated that women were more willing to self-disclose than men. Contrary to predictions, people from The United States reported more willingness to self-disclose than people from Peru, and also were more willing to self-disclose happy events than sad events. Both people from Peru and The United States indicated willingness to self-disclose more to friends than to relatives.; An alternative explanation was considered for the main effect of sex of communicator. Perhaps people thought that they would be communicating to a same-sex other. Sex of the recipient of self-disclosure would thus be a confounding variable.