Neuroticism, social desirability and anticipations and attributions affecting self-disclosure

The first part of this research, a questionnaire study on 260 single British males, found neuroticism to be inversely related to need for social approval, thus raising an issue about the validity of the EPI-N scale. From the second part, a laboratory study with 48 subjects selected by the questionnaire study, there were four main findings: (1) an earlier finding, that most subjects tended in the direction of a double standard in which they anticipated more risk stemming from their own than from their friend's negative self-disclosures, was replicated highly significantly; (2) neuroticism was not associated significantly with differences in anticipated reactions for either negative or positive self-disclosures; (3) there was a large and highly significant main effect for order, with those subjects who first rated their own reactions to their friend's negative self-disclosures anticipating being esteemed less negatively than those who first rated their friend's reactions to their own negative self-disclosures; and (4) there were significant differences for some characteristics between self-attribution and friend's attribution after negative self-disclosure. Practical implications of the above findings are explored.