To know you is to feel intimate with you: Felt knowledge is rooted in disclosure, solicitation, and intimacy

Abstract

People desire and need to know their relationship partner, and evidence shows that they feel that they know their partner. How does this feeling of knowing one’s partner develop? In this study, we examined three behavioral sources of felt knowledge: partner-disclosure, self-disclosure, and information solicitation. We predicted that the three sources not only contribute to felt knowledge, but also to feelings of intimacy. Felt knowledge and intimacy should be initiated when close partners communicate personally relevant information to the other. They should thereby be mutually transformative: the more people feel they know their partner, the more they should feel intimate with the partner, and the more they feel intimate with the partner, the more they should feel they know their partner. Findings from a five-wave longitudinal study among married couples, revealed good support for model predictions: (1) behavioral sources of knowledge promoted felt knowledge, which, in turn, increased feelings of intimacy, and (2) sources of knowledge promoted feelings of intimacy, which, in turn, increased felt knowledge. These results highlight the subjective and inherently relational nature of felt knowledge and intimacy: although people feel they know their partner, this knowledge is not exclusively fuelled by partner input. Rather, people’s own behavior, their own disclosure and solicitation, contribute to felt knowledge, which plays a crucial role in maintaining close relationships.