Just between us…: The role of sharing and receiving secrets in friendship across time

IF 1.8 4区心理学 Q2 COMMUNICATION

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS Pub Date : 2023-11-08 DOI:10.1111/pere.12527

Alisa Bedrov, Shelly L. Gable

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract Secrets are prominent in close relationships. Most research has examined people's general tendencies to share secrets or single instances of secret‐keeping or secret‐sharing. These methods limit what we know about how keeping and sharing secrets across time in established close relationships is associated with important relationship characteristics. This research focused on the role that secret exchanges play in how people assess relational closeness and social utility (i.e., being a valuable social connection) in friendships. Across 10 weeks, participants ( N = 126) reported bi‐weekly on sharing and receiving personal and secondhand secrets (i.e., third‐party secrets) with three friends. We found that sharing and receiving more personal secrets were robustly associated with higher closeness and social utility. The findings on secondhand secret‐sharing were more complex, suggesting that receiving secondhand secrets from friends and sharing secondhand secrets with friends were differentially associated with closeness and social utility when comparing short‐term versus cumulative effects. Results are discussed in terms of how secret‐sharing behaviors are dynamically associated with close relationship qualities.

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就在我们之间:在友谊中分享和接受秘密的角色

在亲密关系中，秘密是很突出的。大多数研究都考察了人们分享秘密的一般倾向，或者是保守秘密或分享秘密的单个实例。这些方法限制了我们对在已建立的亲密关系中保持和分享秘密与重要关系特征之间的关系的了解。这项研究的重点是秘密交换在人们如何评估友谊中的关系亲密度和社会效用(即成为有价值的社会联系)方面所起的作用。在10周的时间里，参与者(N = 126)每两周报告一次与三个朋友分享和接收个人和二手秘密(即第三方秘密)的情况。我们发现，分享和接受更多的个人秘密与更高的亲密度和社会效用密切相关。关于二手秘密分享的研究结果更为复杂，这表明从朋友那里接受二手秘密和与朋友分享二手秘密在短期效应和累积效应方面与亲密度和社会效用的关系是不同的。结果讨论了秘密分享行为是如何与亲密关系质量动态关联的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS Multiple-

CiteScore

2.40

自引率

6.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Personal Relationships, first published in 1994, is an international, interdisciplinary journal that promotes scholarship in the field of personal relationships using a wide variety of methodologies and throughout a broad range of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, communication studies, anthropology, family studies, child development, social work, and gerontology. The subject matter and approach of Personal Relationships will be of interest to researchers, teachers, and practitioners. Manuscripts examining a wide range of personal relationships, including those between romantic or intimate partners, spouses, parents and children, siblings, classmates, coworkers, neighbors, and friends are welcome.