Getting to Know You: How Own Age and Other's Age Relate to Self-Disclosure

Abstract

In this study, we compared self-disclosures made in ten same-aged (young-young) and ten mixed-aged (young-old) conversational dyads. We developed a scoring scheme to code get-acquainted conversations on amount, type, valence, and intimacy of self-disclosure (S-Ds). Overall, young women produced more S-Ds with same-aged than with older partners. Young women devoted marginally fewer of their self-disclosures to statements about the past than did older women. Younger and older women's S-Ds about the present and the past were not significantly different in how negative, positive, or intimate they were. The intimacy and negativity of disclosures made by the dyad members were more closely correlated in young-young than in young-old dyads. Young participants' affective reports following the conversations did not differ as a function of partner age, but did correlate with aspects of their partners' self-disclosures. Findings offer a contrast to the stereotype that older adults dominate conversations with intimate, negative disclosures about the past.