To investigate this subject, we designed a 3 × 3 factorial between-subjects experiment involving three conditions of behavioral realism: high realism, low realism, and audio-only (displaying no behavior at all) and three conditions of reciprocal self-disclosure: high disclosure, low disclosure, and no disclosure.
Most divorces, on the other hand, require a multitude of paperwork... a petition for dissolution of marriage, answer to the petition, marital settlement agreement, reciprocal financial disclosure documents, parenting plan (if you have minor children), and a laundry list of other documents leading up to the final decree.
That is, characters in a script that made statements of acknowledgement or sympathy in response to a self-disclosure of their interaction partners were favoured by participants over characters that only disclosed personal information in response to a self-disclosure (i.e., reciprocal self-disclosure).
And that process of reciprocal self-disclosure fosters trust.
We explore the effect of behavioral realism and reciprocal self-disclosure from computer interviewers on the social responses of human users in simulated psychotherapeutic counseling interactions.
In their treatment, patients, instead of only experimenting with dropping of safety behaviours (based on the work of Clark 2005; Clark et al. 2006), also extensively experiment with increasing their social approach and reciprocal self-disclosure behaviour.
The key to creating closeness, according to the study, is "sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personalistic self-disclosure" – in other words, revealing a lot about yourself, gradually, over a period of time.
To quote the study's authors, "One key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure".
"Our disclosures should be reciprocal, meaning that one person should not be doing all the talking and disclosing," Campbell says.
Researchers may find it difficult to act ethically in seeking informed participation when result disclosure is seen as the reciprocal gift.
