Self Disclosure Gender

Final (Research) Paper:
Gender and Self Disclosure

Picture yourself in a grocery store. The woman next to you is on her cellular phone talking to what sounds like a boyfriend. You hear her say, “I’m going out with my girlfriends tonight, we all need some time to talk and catch up.” Now imagine yourself in the same situation, replacing the woman on the cell phone with a man. Would a man sound strange saying, “I’m going out with my boyfriends tonight, we just need to chat.”? This situation would more than likely cause the eavesdropper much confusion. It is not because men do not typically have male friends with whom they spend time with, while women have girlfriends with whom they do. The question presented from this situation lies
in the level of self disclosure typical to gender. Do women find the act of self disclosure easier than men find it to be? I believe the answer is yes, in comparison to men, women find it easy to share details about themselves and their feelings with others. According to a meta-analysis of research used by Kathryn Dindia, in her book entitled Balancing the Secrets of Private Disclosures, self disclosure was found to be most common in female to female communication, while male to male communication was found to be the least common (among female to female, female to male, and male to male communications).
Dindia goes on to point out that if female to male communications scored higher in the study than male to male communications, the determining factor was the fact that females are more comfortable with disclosure than males, even in cross-gender situations. Supporting Dindia’s findings, an article printed in Vol. 33 of Sex Roles: A Journal of Research suggests that men may be less expressive with their male friends out of concern that they will appear weak. And while this explanation may have merit, it does not account for why women are also less likely to disclose with males than with females. This may be because males commonly do not receive support from other males for disclosure, while females are typically very
supportive. While experiment and study results can prove much about disclosure concerning gender, this is best illustrated by actually watching and analyzing female and male interactions.
In the film Mona Lisa Smile, the ease and extent to which women share with one another is obvious. Throughout the entire movie you will notice the bonds formed between the main (female) characters. While this relationship is shown prevalently, the relationships among the male characters in the movie are not nearly as obvious. There is a scene in the movie in which one of the female characters sneaks onto the campus of an all-boys school in order to talk to her ex-boyfriend. In this scene, the female character runs into her ex-boyfriend’s dorm room and shuts the door behind her, which is against the campus rules. Soon there is a crowd of boys trying to get the door open, all the while heckling the character of the ex-boyfriend. This illustrates the way in which males tend to interact with each other. If this situation had been located in a girls’ dormitory, the girls would have been more likely to stay in their rooms and discuss the situation (in detail)
later. Although Hollywood can prove useful in illustrating different forms of interpersonal communication, life experience is the most beneficial and self-fulfilling. While piecing together research on the topic of gender and disclosure, I made an observation of my own life. For the past year and a half, I have been working for a building and restoration company. Due to the nature of this job, every co-worker but one is male. Although I didn’t realize it at first, I slowly started to notice changes in my behavior, the most noticeable being my ability to share details about myself with others. Thinking about this led me to the conclusion that a lack of contact with females on a daily basis caused a loss of comfort in self disclosure. Since realizing this I have made a conscious effort to spend more time with my girlfriends and I have noticed an improvement in this area of my life. While these findings on gender differences in disclosure are interesting, they do not answer the question of why females are more comfortable with disclosure than males. Could it possibly be due to traditional gender roles and ideals, making men feel “weak” for sharing their feelings? Maybe women are simply more self confident, causing them to be more comfortable in who they are and what they feel. One can make many hypotheses about why this is, but one fact remains true; women find the act of self disclosure easier than men find it.