The Silent And Supportive Side Of Close Intercultural Communication-Nonverbal Self-Disclosure Between Chinese And American Same-Sex Intimate Friends

The purpose of this thesis is to apply intercultural communication (IC) principles to their closest and most influential context—close interpersonal communication. It is believed that the theories and concepts of IC that one applied to face-to-face or group-to-group communication can and must also be tested in closer domains of human interaction like friendship. From a social psychology perspective of IC, how people communicate or self-disclose with their closest friends is an important and little studied area in the field, especially in China.Self-disclosure draws much research attention in interpersonal communication studies, so this thesis seeks to extend those studies on intercultural perspectives. Altman and Taylor's (1973) social penetration theory has been regarded as an essential theory in relationship development research. It claims that in all aspects of communication, the more intimate the relationship people have the more they will self-disclose. Nonverbal behavior is an important component of a larger communicative system including verbal and nonverbal behavior.Previous research has focused on the verbal self-disclosure from the perspectives of cross-cultural communication and social psychology, and proved the validity of social penetration theory indirectly (Chen, 1995). This research tests whether or not this theory is true in nonverbal communication. Another goal is to investigate the nonverbal self-disclosure patterns of Chinese and Americans. The author first...