I. In any relationship there are dialectics or tensions that may be experienced by both people, one of which is the disclosure-privacy dialectic.
A. The disclosure-privacy dialectic is the tension between sharing personal information and keeping personal information confidential.
B. Disclosure, or revealing private information, has related concepts.
2. Privacy is withholding confidential or secret information in order to enhance autonomy and/or minimize vulnerability.
II. Each person has developed rules about what he or she will share, which is explained in more depth by the communication privacy management theory.
A. Communication privacy management theory helps to explain the decision-making processes people use to manage disclosure and privacy.
1. The theory asserts that each of us has developed rules about privacy and disclosure.
2. These rules are designed to help us maximize the benefits of disclosure while minimizing risks.
B. There are five factors that influence disclosure and privacy.
1. One’s culture influences rules about privacy and disclosure, with some cultures placing a higher value on privacy than others.
2. Gender is a criterion, since men or women who strongly identify themselves as masculine or feminine are likely to use rules for disclosure and privacy that correspond to sex role stereotypes.
3. Motivation is a criterion, since people differ in how eager they are to disclose to someone.
4. Context also determines privacy and disclosure rules, since people are influenced by the circumstances in which they find themselves.
IV. Disclosure and privacy have an effect on relationships.
A. Recall, the social penetration theory states that over time relationships move from lesser to greater intimacy based on the increasing number of topics that relational partners discuss and the degree of personal information disclosed on