Psychological factors influencing self-disclosure in marital relationships

Abstract

Building on the social exchange theory, self-disclosure in marital relationships was assumed to be influenced by self–esteem, self-monitoring and social–demographic factors of gender, age, education qualification and duration of marriage. An Ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study while a sample of 204 married people completed measures of self-esteem, self-monitoring, self-disclosure and social-demographic factors as measured by a well structured questionnaire. It was hypothesized that jointly and independently self-esteem, self-monitoring, sex, age, duration of marriage and educational level will predict self-disclosure in marital relationship. The results indicated significant joint prediction of self-disclosure by self-esteem, self-monitoring, age, gender, educational levels and duration of marriage (R² = .11; F (6,197) = 4.48; P<.001). Significant independent predictions of self-disclosure by self-esteem (β =.15; t = 2.06; P<.05), self-monitoring (β = .18; t = 2.43; P<.01) and educational qualifications (β = .17; t = 2.49; P<.01) were also demonstrated. Other social-demographic variables were not significant predictors of self-disclosure. It is concluded that self-esteem, self-monitoring and degree of education are highly relevant to an understanding of self-disclosure in marital relationships. The results were discussed in terms of practical implication of these findings and suggestions for future research.

African Journal for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Vol. 8(1) 2005: 73-87