An Experimental Research About The Effect Of Self-disclosing "Warmth" And "Competence" On Interpersonal Attraction

Self-disclosure refers to the process of individuals telling their personal information to other people."Warmth" and "competence" is the core content of social cognition,and the core dimension used to distinguish various types of stereotypes."Warmth" and "competence"could be presented through self-disclosure.Interpersonal attraction refers to a person’s tendency to evaluate others in a positive way."Social attraction" and "task attraction" are two important dimensions of interpersonal attraction.A large number of studies have pointed out that proper self-disclosure promotes interpersonal attraction,but the relevant conclusions are not consistent,and the measurement of interpersonal attraction has not been differentiated by dimensions.This shows that some factors have not yet been well controlled.The purpose of this study is to investigate whether self-disclosing"warmth" and "competence" will have different effects on individual interpersonal attraction,and whether this effect will be moderated by objective stereotypes of the self-discloser.Research methods:the study was carried out by the experimental method.Some materials about self-disclosure of "warmth" and"competence" were made to manipulate independent variables,and the interpersonal attraction scale(IAS-18)is revised to measure the dependent variables.There are three studies in this research each that consisted of two behavioral experiments.In the first study,we examined whether the self-disclosure of "warmth" and "competence" have a corresponding effect on social attraction and task attraction,and whether they interact with the content valence of disclosure.Study two examined whether the gender and appearance of the discloser could affect the effect of self-disclosing "warmth" and "competence" on interpersonal attraction,and whether there was stereotype effect.Study three examined whether the effect of power and wealth level of the discloser would be different from the effect of sex and appearance of the discloser.The results of the study are as follows:(1)The results of Experiment 1 show that positive self-disclosure of“warmth”has positive effect on social attraction,and positive self-disclosure of "competence" has positive effect on "task attraction".(2)Experiment 2 revalidated the results of Experiment 1,and supplemented the new findings.Negative"warmth" self-disclosure has negative effects on "social attraction" and"task attraction".(3)Results of experiment 3 showed that female disclosing positive "warmth" has higher "social attraction" than female disclosing positive "competence",but men do not have this results;Female who disclosing positive "warmth" or negative "competence" has higher "social attraction" and "task attraction" than male.(4)Results of Experiment 4 showed that although the "task attraction" of the high appearance person and the low appearance person were all higher when they disclosing positive "competence" than they disclosing positive"warmth",high appearance discloser’s task attraction was significantly higher than those with low appearance.Despite the "task attraction" of the high appearance discloser and the low appearance discloser were higher when they disclosing negative competence than they disclosing negative "warmth",low appearance discloser’s task attraction was significantly higher than those with high appearance.When all disclosing positive "warmth",the "task attraction" of low appearance discloser was higher than those high appearance discloser.When all disclosing negative "warmth",the "task attraction" of high appearance was higher than those low appearance discloser.(5)Results of experiment 5 show that the task attraction of discloser with high power is higher when they disclosing positive competence than they disclosing positive warmth,meanwhile is the same when they disclosing negative warmth than they disclosing netative competence,but all are not when discloser is poor.Although the task attraction of discloser with high power all are higher than those with low power in each disclosing conditions,the dimension with greatest difference is negative disclosure of warmth,the dimension with least difference is positive disclosure of warmth.(6)Results of Experiment 6 showed that the "task attraction" of the discloser is higher when they disclosing positive "competence" than disclosing positive "warmth" if discloser is rich man,but not if discloser is poor man.Although the "attraction" of the rich in negative disclosure are all higher than that of the poor,the most significant dimension is negative"warmth".Conclusion:(1)Positive disclosure of "warmth" has a relative advantage in enhancing the "social attraction";so the same is the positive disclosure of "competence" in enhancing "task attraction";negative disclosure of "warmth" has an absolute advantage in weakening "social attraction";negative disclosure "competence" and negative "warmth"have almost the same effect on weaken "task attraction";Compared with negative disclosure of "competence",negative disclosure of "warmth"shows a more negative impact on interpersonal attraction.(2)Gender,appearance,power status and wealth level of discloser moderate the scope and extent of interpersonal attraction by self-disclosure of"warmth" and "competence",and the direction of adjustment is closely related to their stereotypes.Those self-disclosure according with some stereotype expectations will enhance their interpersonal attraction,while conversely,it will weaken their interpersonal attraction when violating some stereotype expectations.Namely,there are stereotype effect existing in the influence of self-disclosure of "warmth" and "competence" on interpersonal attraction.(3)When some discloser has obvious advantages in some aspects contrast to those disadvantaged,the interpersonal attraction of those discloser with some advantages are higher than those with disadvantage at most times,so we can say that there is the superiority effect in negative self-disclosure.