Abstract
A self-disclosure questionnaire was devised to examine women's and men's willingness to disclose information about the “masculine” and “feminine” aspects of themselves. The Masculine and Feminine Self-Disclosure Scale (MFSDS) has four separate subscales: two masculine scales assess the tendency to discuss agentic, instrumental traits and behaviors; and two feminine scales measure the tendency to self-disclose about communal, expressive traits and behaviors. The results indicated that women's and men's disclosure of their masculine-instrumental and feminine-expressive traits and behaviors to a disclosure recipient was tempered by the content of the disclosure and the personal characteristics of the disclosure recipient. These findings were interpreted within a self-presentational analysis that women and men attempted to foster favorable masculine-instrumental and feminine-expressive images for particular persons.
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Portions of this research were presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association, Dallas, Texas, April 1982. Gratitude is extended to Richard Archer for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
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Snell, W.E., Belk, S.S. & Hawkins, R.C. The masculine and feminine self-disclosure scale: The politics of masculine and feminine self-presentation. Sex Roles 15, 249–267 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288315
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288315