The need for approval and the private versus public disclosure of self

The relationship between need for approval and public and private self-disclosure was evaluated. Sixty female college students discussed their preferences for a steady date with a confederate in confidence or after having given permission for their comments to be cited in lectures or a book. The results showed that high-need-for-approval subjects revealed themselves more intimately in public than in private conditions wheras low- and moderate-need subjects disclosed more intimately in private than in public. The results not only demonstrated the strength of the effect of social evaluation on the behavior of high-need subjects, but also suggested that personality must be accounted for in self-disclosure research before factors influencing self-disclosure may be understood completely.