Imitation and Prior Classroom Contact as Determinants of Reciprocal Self-Disclosure

Abstract

The reciprocity effect in self-disclosure research was tested by controlling for the effects of content imitation and prior degree of contact with the experimenter. Written self-disclosures and objective checklist responses were obtained from 165 subjects on a questionnaire soliciting their reasons for reading non-assigned books. The experimenter disclosed in writing to half the subjects his reasons for reading non-assigned books (these reasons matched two of the checklist reasons); the remaining subjects did not receive the experimenter's disclosure. No content imitation of the experimenter's self-disclosure was found in either checklist or essay responses. No reciprocity effect was found: the experimenter's disclosure and no-disclosure groups did not differ significantly in the length or intimacy of their written disclosures. However, subjects having prior contact with the experimenter as professor wrote longer and more personal essays than subjects unfamiliar with the experimenter, suggesting that the experimenter-subject relationship may be a potent variable in self-disclosure research.