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Relationships Among Gender, Gender Role Individualized Trust, And Self-Disclosure, John D. Foubert

Master's Theses

Self-disclosure, the process of revealing personal information to other people, was examined in relation to gender, gender role and individualized trust. Undergraduate subjects (N = 293) completed the Jourard Self-Disclosure Scale (Jourard, 1971b), the Individualized Trust Scales (Wheeless & Grotz, 1977), the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974), and a demographic questionnaire. Significant interactions emerged between gender and individualized trust (p < .01), gender and gender role (p < .05), and individualized trust and gender role (p = .01). An androgynous gender role was shown to lead to higher rates of self-disclosure in the high trust condition but not in the low trust condition. Although masculine males and masculine females did not disclose differently, feminine females disclosed markedly more than feminine males. The relationship between individualized trust and gender role revealed an increase in self-disclosure common to androgynous individuals is restricted to those who are high trusting.