This study examined relations among implicit intimacy motivation (n Int), self-attributed intimacy motivation (san Int) and social interaction variables; n Int was measured by thematic analysis of imaginative story content, whereas san Int was measured with a self-report questionnaire adapted from the Jackson Personality Research Form. Forty university students kept a daily record of their social interactions for a 1-week period. The results indicated that n Int and san Int were not significantly correlated, were associated with different quantitative dimensions of social interaction and were both independent predictors of the valence of social interaction. Although neither n Int nor san Int were significantly related to self-disclosure, the two types of intimacy motivation seemed to be particularly responsive to different environmental cues in social interaction for self-disclosure. These results are consistent with research on the implicit and self-attributed measures of other social motives.
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