DIMINISHING SELF-DISCLOSURE Results and Discussion ements(Mage=23e3rs】 Mos cipants described within dyads.Rando n intercepts were estimated for each dyad 1,6.2 an American.6.7 Asia and 7 oth daily a sments of ach member.The models iependence.Given the limited degrees of freedom.slopes aires ven cutive evenings creen re tion(ieone per to n dai 1320 ments)We regr ed per eivers'daily percentions of self disclosure on their to m are not relevant t urrent investigatior that self-disclosure usually facilitate Participa completed two me and is heir study partner.includinga i osure aeross the sampled days (42).(1811)=5 nitment (e.g. hip to of self-disclos for the tested the prediction that perceivers' 80 especially likely to depend arge sponsiv sing 9-poin ponse scales (1 extr ivers should p rceive high self highly gree d in ved in an unn perhaps just a as th re per targ Dail perceptio r partner's their ptions of targets'res nd a prod derate or thoughtful was your p "Toda C.g. tions of self-disclosure to control for accurac .e hich targets agree ivers'chron valuin cre av aged to indicate morere lued are plotted in Figure 4.We xamined e-disc edures recommende Cohen.Cohen.West.an low and high level ted t perceivers deny s e on day item liscl sure(ie."Today,my partner clearly comm nicated to me 9-point agreiy ined in the response scale participants completed a sinele item as thi about me)Pantic the dai ted an analogous item Still.the g the dail regarding the diagnosticity of their own behavior n person me an undergraduate psychology subject pool, flyers posted on college campuses and various retail locations, and newspaper and Internet advertisements (M age
23 years). Most participants described their relationship as dating (75%), engaged to be married (4%), or married (13%).6 The racial distribution was as follows: 80% Cau￾casian, 6.2% African American, 6.7% Asian, and 7% other. Procedure. Participants arrived to the laboratory with their study partner and completed the baseline measures described be￾low (in addition to measures that are not relevant to the current investigation). Participants were asked to complete daily question￾naires for seven consecutive evenings, beginning the following evening. Daily questionnaires were completed on a secure website that recorded the date and time of completion, which allowed us to screen responses with regard to timing of completion (i.e., one per evening). Due to missing or invalid (due to timing) daily reports, the total number of daily observations was 1,239. The daily ques￾tionnaires included the daily measures described below (in addi￾tion to measures that are not relevant to the current investigation). Baseline measures. Partner valuing of targets. Participants completed two mea￾sures of the extent to which they valued their relationship with their study partner, including a five-item measure of relationship commitment (e.g., “I want our relationship to last for a very long time”; “I am committed to maintaining my relationship with him/ her”; Cronbach’s
.87), and a five-item measure of care for the partner (e.g., “Helping him/her is a high priority for me”; “I care for his/her needs”; Cronbach’s
.81). Items were completed using 9-point response scales (1
extremely disagree; 9
ex￾tremely agree). In turn, responses on these two measures were highly correlated (Cronbach’s
.77) and were averaged to create an index of partner valuing. Daily measures. Daily perception of partner’s responsive behavior. Participants completed an eight-item measure of their perceptions of their partner’s daily responsive behavior (e.g., “Today, how considerate or thoughtful was your partner toward you?”; “Today, to what extent did your partner sacrifice [e.g., his/her time, goals, or personal wishes] to do something for you?”; “Today, how critical or insulting was your partner toward you?”). Items were completed using 9-point response scales (1
not at all; 9
extremely). After reverse-scoring negatively worded items, re￾sponses were averaged to create an index of daily perceptions of the partner’s responsive behavior (Cronbach’s
.87). Higher values indicate more responsive behavior. Daily perceptions of self-disclosure. Participants completed a single item assessing the extent to which they disclosed their needs and desires to their partner (“Today, I clearly communicated to my partner my needs and preferences”). Participants also completed an analogous item assessing perceptions of their partner’s self￾disclosure (i.e., “Today, my partner clearly communicated to me his/her needs and preferences”). Items were completed using 9-point response scales (1
extremely disagree; 9
extremely agree). Daily perceptions of diagnosticity. Using the same 9-point response scale, participants completed a single item assessing perceptions of the diagnosticity of the partner’s behavior (“Today, my partner’s behavior toward me was a reflection of how he/she feels about me”). Participants also completed an analogous item regarding the diagnosticity of their own behavior. Results and Discussion Analysis strategy. We tested predictions using multilevel models that accounted for the nesting of days and individuals within dyads. Random intercepts were estimated for each dyad member to account for the covariance due to making repeated daily assessments of each member. The models estimated the covariance across the two dyad members of these intercepts and of the day-specific residuals, which accounts for potential dyadic interdependence. Given the limited degrees of freedom, slopes were modeled as fixed. Effects of partner valuing on average levels of self-disclosure. First we sought to replicate prior findings suggesting a positive association between participants’ sentiments toward their partners and self-disclosure in general (i.e., averaged across the daily as￾sessments). We regressed perceivers’ daily perceptions of self￾disclosure on their chronic valuing of targets (care and commit￾ment) as assessed during the baseline session. Consistent with prior research suggesting that self-disclosure usually facilitates relationship quality and is associated with positive sentiments, perceivers’ valuing of target partners predicted increased reports of self-disclosure across the sampled days (b
.42), t(181.71)
5, p  .001. Responsiveness-driven perceptions of self-disclosure. Next we tested the prediction that perceivers’ perceptions of self￾disclosure are especially likely to depend on targets’ responsive behaviors when perceivers strongly value relationships with tar￾gets. That is, highly valuing perceivers should perceive high self￾disclosure when target partners behaved in a responsive manner, but they should also perceive low disclosure when target partners behaved in an unresponsive manner, perhaps just as low as the disclosure perceived by those who do not value targets. To test this prediction, we regressed perceivers’ daily perceptions of self￾disclosure on their daily perceptions of targets’ responsive behav￾ior, perceivers’ chronic valuing of targets, and a product term representing their interaction. We controlled for targets’ percep￾tions of perceivers’ self-disclosure to control for accuracy of perceivers’ perceptions (i.e., the extent to which targets agreed with perceivers’ judgments of self-disclosure).7 The anticipated interaction between perceivers’ chronic valuing of targets and perceivers’ daily perceptions of targets’ behavior was significant, b
.11, t(948.01)
3.25, p  .01. Predicted valued are plotted in Figure 4. We examined conditional effects following procedures recommended by Cohen, Cohen, West, and Aiken (2003). First, we examined effects of daily perceived part￾ner responsiveness at low and high levels of chronic valuing, which address whether perceivers deny self-disclosure on days 6 Although we explicitly stated that participants must bring a romantic partner to the lab, some participants (7%) described their relationship with their study partner as a friendship. It is unclear whether this term refers to a platonic friendship or a casual sexual relationship. Responses provided by these participants were retained in the data analysis. 7 We centered the predictors on sample means. We did not center the daily predictors on person means because this would preclude us from comparing low valuing and high valuing perceivers when their partner’s behavior is similarly unresponsive. Centering a daily variable on person means eliminates the ability to equate participants on the daily variable. Still, the predicted interaction emerged even when centering the daily predictors on person means (b
.15, t
3.58, p  .001). This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. DIMINISHING SELF-DISCLOSURE 45