The effects of gender and sex role orientation on written self-disclosure

Seventy male and 89 female undergraduate students enrolled in courses in the Colleges of Education and Liberal Arts at a large southern university served as subjects. The Personality Research Form-ANDRO Scale was completed by subjects in order to categorize them into one of four sex role orientations--androgynous, masculine, feminine, or indeterminate. Subjects also wrote responses to three open-ended, intimate, self-disclosure stimulus statements pertaining to (1) physical appearance and personal attractiveness, (2) anxiety and fear, and (3) self-esteem. Three graduate students were trained to rate the self-disclosure responses according to the Disclosure Rating Scale. A 2 X 4 analysis of variance was used to analyze the data.

The major finding was that undergraduate females made actual self-disclosures at significantly (p<.0001) higher levels on intimate topics than did undergraduate males. The other hypotheses were not supported. The study concluded with a discussion of limitations and suggestions for future research.