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The present study aimed at investigating the gender differences in emotional self-disclosure. The sample consisted of 300 university students (with gender equivalence) age ranged from 20-35 years. Emotional Self-disclosure Scale (Snell, 1990) was used to measure the degree of self-disclosure in adults. Results showed significant gender differences in emotional self-disclosure, women disclosed their emotions more to their friends as compared to men. Results subjected to male and female recipients suggested that women disclose their emotional feelings more to their female friends, and men do towards their male friends. The study further found that there are differential tendencies among male and female students in disclosing their different types of emotions to male and female recipients.
Keywords: Self-disclosure, self-description, interpersonal problems, emotional expressiveness, gender
Individuals take part in self-disclosure when one individual reveals personal information about him/herself to another individual. Disclosure reciprocity is an important aspect of self-disclosure. This occurs when one person discloses information on a particular intimacy level; the other person will also disclose information on that same level (Burger, 2000). Important form of self-disclosure is emotional self-disclosure. One study defined emotional selfdisclosure as any intentional and voluntary verbal utterance that conveys information about the emotional state of the individual (Papini & Farmer, 1990). In other words, emotional self-disclosure is when one individual shares personal feelings with another individual. Howell and Conway (1990) have found that positive emotional selfdisclosures are more likely to be made than negative emotional selfdisclosures, because it is seemingly more appropriate to self-disclose positive emotions.
Jourard (1971) defines emotional self-disclosure as making ourselves "transparent" to others through our communication i.e., when we tell others things about ourselves which help them to see our uniqueness as a human being. A fully functioning person, individuals should both be willing and able to disclose intimate, personal information to the significant people in their lives. Andrews, Clark, and Zinker (1988) distinguished between self -description and selfdisclosure. Self-description involves communication that levels "public layers", whereas, self -disclosure involves communication that reveals more private, sensitive, and confidential information.
Individuals are generally not comfortable with self-disclosing to others due to the fear of embarrassment (Burger, 2000). Burger found that by keeping information hidden from the people in our lives, more stress and worry develop than it...