Self-Disclosure in Dating Couples: Sex Roles and the Ethic of Openness

Abstract

proportions of both women and men reported that they had disclosed their thoughts and feelings 'fully to their partners in almost all domains. But women had revealed more than men in several specific areas, including their greatest fiars, and women were more likely to be identified as the more highly disclosing partners. Both men and women in couples with egalitarian sex-role attitudes disclosed more than those in couples with traditional sex-role attitudes. Self-disclosure was strongly related to respondents' reported love for their partners, but not to the power structure of their relationships.