Abstract
Disclosure of intimate personal stories is an essential part of many marketplace conversations. In four experiments, this research investigates whether a social media influencer’s sharing of sensitive self-disclosure (i.e., personal information involving risk and vulnerability) can either enhance or diminish their persuasive impact. In Study 1, we find that the impact of sensitive self-disclosure on persuasion is contingent on the expected types of influencer-audience relationships (communal vs. exchange). An influencer’s sensitive self-disclosure enhances persuasion when the expected influencer-audience relationship is communal, characterized by emotional connection and mutual care. In exchange relationships, where the audience expects a more information-oriented approach, sensitive self-disclosure diminishes the influencer’s persuasive impact. Study 2 demonstrates that these effects are mediated by trust in communal relationships and by perceived violations of relationship norms in exchange relationships. Studies 3 and 4 identify the boundary conditions for these effects. Study 3 shows that extremely sensitive self-disclosure, which triggers a norm violation, reduces persuasion in a communal relationship. Study 4 reveals that solicited sensitive self-disclosure, which triggers conflicting norms, increases persuasion in an exchange relationship. This research widens the scope of persuasion literature by incorporating sensitive self-disclosure as a novel framework for understanding online influencer-audience persuasion.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The dataset generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
Aggarwal, P. (2004). The effects of brand relationship norms on consumer attitudes and behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(1), 87–101. https://doi.org/10.1086/383426
Aggarwal, P., & Law, S. (2005). Role of relationship norms in processing brand information. Journal of Consumer Research, 32(3), 453–464. https://doi.org/10.1086/497557
Altman, I., & Taylor, D. A. (1973). Social penetration: The development of interpersonal relationships. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Backman, C. W. (1985). Identity, self presentation, and the resolution of moral dilemmas: Towards a social psychological theory of moral behavior. In B. R. Schlenker (Ed.), The self and social life (pp. 261–289). McGraw-Hill.
Bansal, H. S., & Voyer, P. A. (2000). Word-of-mouth processes within a services purchase decision context. Journal of Service Research, 3(2), 166–177. https://doi.org/10.1177/109467050032005
Barak, A., & Gluck-Ofri, O. (2007). Degree and reciprocity of self-disclosure in online forums. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(3), 407–417. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2006.9938
Berger, C. R., & Calabrese, R. J. (1974). Some explorations in initial interaction and beyond: Toward a developmental theory of interpersonal communication. Human Communication Research, 1(2), 99–112. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1975.tb00258.x
Bigelow, B. J. (1977). Children’s friendship expectations: A cognitive-developmental study. Child Development, 18, 246–253. https://doi.org/10.2307/1128905
Brehm, S. S. (1992). Intimate relationships. Mcgraw-Hill Book Company.
Brown, J. J., & Reingen, P. H. (1987). Social ties and word-of-mouth referral behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 14(3), 350–362. https://doi.org/10.1086/209118
Brown, J., Broderick, A. J., & Lee, N. (2007). Word of mouth communication within online communities: Conceptualizing the online social network. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 21(3), 2–20. https://doi.org/10.1002/dir.20082
Burgoon, J. K. (1995). Cross-cultural and intercultural applications of expectancy violations theory. In R. L. Wiseman (Ed.), Intercultural communication theory (pp. 194–214). Sage.
Burgoon, M., & Miller, G. R. (1985). An expectancy interpretation of language and persuasion. In H. Giles & R. N. Clair (Eds.), The social and psychological contexts of language (pp. 199–229). Routledge.
Carl, W. J. (2006). What’s all the buzz about? Everyday communication and the relational basis of word-of-mouth and buzz marketing practices. Management Communication Quarterly, 19(4), 601–634. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318905284763
Cialdini, R. B. (1993). Influence: The psychology of persuasion (Rev. ed.). Collins.
Clark, M. S., & Mills, J. (1979). Interpersonal attraction in exchange and communal relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.1.12
Clark, M. S., & Mills, J. (1993). The difference between communal and exchange relationships: What it is and is not. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19(6), 684–691. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167293196003
Collins, N. L., & Miller, L. C. (1994). Self-disclosure and liking: a meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 116(3), 457–475. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.116.3.457
Cozby, P. C. (1972). Self-disclosure, reciprocity and liking. Sociometry, 35(March), 151–160.
Cozby, P. C. (1973). Self-disclosure: A literature review. Psychological Bulletin, 79(2), 73–91. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033950
DeRidder, R. E., & Tripathi, R. C. E. (1992). Norm violation and intergroup relations. Oxford University Press.
Derlaga, V. J., & Berg, J. H. (1987). Self-disclosure: Theory, research, and therapy. Springer Science & Business Media.
Derlega, V., & Grzelak, J. (1979). Appropriateness of self-disclosure in Self-disclosure: Origins, patterns, and implications of openness in interpersonal relationships. In G. J. Chelune (Ed.), Self-disclosure: Origins, patterns, and implications of openness in interpersonal relationships (pp. 151–176). Jossey-Bass.
Farber, B. A. (2003). Patient self-disclosure: A review of the research. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59(5), 589–600.
Farber, B. A. (2006). Self-disclosure in psychotherapy. Guilford Press.
Forman, C., Ghose, A., & Wiesenfeld, B. (2008). Examining the relationship between reviews and sales: The role of reviewer identity disclosure in electronic markets. Information Systems Research, 19(3), 291–313. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.1080.0193
Friestad, M., & Wright, P. (1994). The persuasion knowledge model: How people cope with persuasion attempts. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1086/209380
Gibbs, J. P. (1981). Norms, deviance, and social control: Conceptual matters. Elsevier Science Limited.
Graziano, A. M., & Mooney, K. C. (1984). Children and behavior therapy. Aldine De Gruyter.
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Speech acts (pp. 41–58). Brill.
Hamilton, M. A., Hunter, J. E., & Burgoon, M. (1990). An empirical test of an axiomatic model of the relationship between language intensity and persuasion. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 9(4), 235–255. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X9094002
Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford publications.
Hayes, A. F., & Preacher, K. J. (2014). Statistical mediation analysis with a multicategorical independent variable. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 67(3), 451–470. https://doi.org/10.1111/bmsp.12028
Heide, J. B., & John, G. (1992). Do norms matter in marketing relationships? Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 32–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299205600203
Hilton, D. J. (1995). The social context of reasoning: Conversational inference and rational judgment. Psychological Bulletin, 118(2), 248. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.118.2.248
Im, S., Lee, D.-H., Taylor, C. R., & D’Orazio, C. (2008). The influence of consumer self-disclosure on web sites on advertising response. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 9(1), 37–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2008.10722146
Jensen Schau, H., & Gilly, M. C. (2003). We are what we post? Self-presentation in personal web space. Journal of Consumer Research, 30(3), 385–404. https://doi.org/10.1086/378616
Jiang, L., Hoegg, J., Dahl, D. W., & Chattopadhyay, A. (2010). The persuasive role of incidental similarity on attitudes and purchase intentions in a sales context. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(5), 778–791. https://doi.org/10.1086/605364
Jiang, L., John, L. K., Boghrati, R., & Kouchaki, M. (2022). Fostering perceptions of authenticity via sensitive self-disclosure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 28(4), 898. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000453
Jourard, S. M. (1964). The transparent self: Self-disclosure and well-being (Vol. 17). Van Nostrand.
Jourard, S. M. (1971). Self-disclosure: An experimental analysis of the transparent self. Wiley-Interscience.
Kelly, A. E., & McKillop, K. J. (1996). Consequences of revealing personal secrets. Psychological Bulletin, 120(3), 450. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.120.3.450
Kim, S. J., Bickart, B. A., Brunel, F. F., & Pai, S. (2013). Can your business have one million friends?: Understanding and using blogs as one-to-one mass media. In Organizations and social networking: Utilizing social media to engage consumers (pp. 125–152). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-4026-9.ch007
Kozinets, R. V., De Valck, K., Wojnicki, A. C., & Wilner, S. J. (2010). Networked narratives: Understanding word-of-mouth marketing in online communities. Journal of Marketing, 74(2), 71–89. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.74.2.71
Kroll, T., & Stieglitz, S. (2021). Digital nudging and privacy: Improving decisions about self-disclosure in social networks. Behaviour & Information Technology, 40(1), 1–19.
Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114–133.
McKenna, K. Y., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). Causes and consequences of social interaction on the Internet: A conceptual framework. Media Psychology, 1(3), 249–269. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532785xmep0103_4
McKenna, K. Y., & Bargh, J. A. (2000). Plan 9 from cyberspace: The implications of the Internet for personality and social psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4(1), 57–75. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0401_6
McKenna, K. Y., Green, A. S., & Gleason, M. E. (2002). Relationship formation on the internet: What’s the big attraction? Journal of Social Issues, 58(1), 9–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00246
McQuarrie, E. F., Miller, J., & Phillips, B. J. (2013). The megaphone effect: Taste and audience in fashion blogging. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(1), 136–158. https://doi.org/10.1086/669042
Melumad, S., & Meyer, R. (2020). Full disclosure: How smartphones enhance consumer self-disclosure. Journal of Marketing, 84(3), 28–45.
Miller, L. C., Berg, J. H., & Archer, R. L. (1983). Openers: Individuals who elicit intimate self-disclosure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(6), 1234. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.6.1234
Moon, Y. (2000). Intimate exchanges: Using computers to elicit self-disclosure from consumers. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(4), 323–339. https://doi.org/10.1086/209566
Naylor, R. W., Lamberton, C. P., & Norton, D. A. (2011). Seeing ourselves in others: Reviewer ambiguity, egocentric anchoring, and persuasion. Journal of Marketing Research, 48(3), 617–631. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.48.3.617
Morry, M. M. (2005). Allocentrism and friendship satisfaction: The mediating roles of disclosure and closeness. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 37(3), 211. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0087258
Rubin, Z. (1975). Disclosing oneself to a stranger: Reciprocity and its limits. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 11(3), 233–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1031(75)80025-4
Sanderson, C. A., & Cantor, N. (1997). Creating satisfaction in steady dating relationships: The role of personal goals and situational affordances. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(6), 1424. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1424
Sprecher, S., & Hendrick, S. S. (2004). Self-disclosure in intimate relationships: Associations with individual and relationship characteristics over time. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23(6), 857–877. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.23.6.857.54803
Stanko, M. A., Bonner, J. M., & Calantone, R. J. (2007). Building commitment in buyer–seller relationships: A tie strength perspective. Industrial Marketing Management, 36(8), 1094–1103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2006.10.001
Taylor, D. A., & Altman, I. (1987). Communication in interpersonal relationships: Social penetration processes.
Thibaut, J. W., & Kelley, H. H. (1959). The social psychology of groups. Routledge.
Toder-Alon, A., Brunel, F. F., & Fournier, S. (2014). Word-of-mouth rhetorics in social media talk. Journal of Marketing Communications, 20(1–2), 42–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2013.797756
Walker, L. S., & Wright, P. H. (1976). Self-disclosure in friendship. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 42(3), 735–742. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1976.42.3.735
Wan, L. C., Hui, M. K., & Wyer, R. S., Jr. (2011). The role of relationship norms in responses to service failures. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(2), 260–277. https://doi.org/10.1086/659039
White, T. B. (2004). Consumer disclosure and disclosure avoidance: A motivational framework. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 14(1–2), 41–51. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp1401&2_6
Wood, W. (2000). Attitude change: Persuasion and social influence. Annual Review of Psychology, 51(1), 539–570.
Acknowledgements
This research is based on the first author’s doctoral dissertation.
Funding
This article is not based on any external research funding.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Conceptualization: Soyean Kim, Barbara A. Bickart, Frédéric F. Brunel, Seema Pai, Methodology: Soyean Kim, Barbara A. Bickart, Frédéric F. Brunel; Formal analysis and investigation: Soyean Kim; Writing original draft preparation: Soyean Kim; Writing – review and editing: Soyean Kim, Barbara A. Bickart, Frédéric F. Brunel.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethics approval
Approval was obtained from the ethics committee of Boston University. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.
Consent to participate
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Financial interests
The authors declare they have no financial interests.
Competing interests
All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Kim, S., Bickart, B.A., Brunel, F.F. et al. Unveiling influence: influencer’s sensitive self-disclosure and its persuasive impact. Curr Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06116-z
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06116-z