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INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES Diminishing Self-Disclosure to Maintain Security in Partners’ Care Edward P. Lemay Jr. University of Maryland, College Park Michael C. Melville University of New Hampshire Six studies demonstrate that perceivers’ desire to bond with targets motivates perceivers to misconstrue their own self-disclosure in ways that maintain perceivers’ security in targets’ care and commitment. Perceivers who strongly valued relationships with targets reported high levels of global self-disclosure, consistent with many findings suggesting salutary effects of disclosure. However, these same perceivers reported low self-disclosure of needs and desires in hypothetical (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) situations characterized by targets’ unresponsive behavior. Similarly, in daily report (Study 3) and behavioral observation (Study 4) studies, perceivers who valued relationships with targets perceived high levels of self-disclosure when targets were responsive, but they perceived low self-disclosure when targets were unresponsive, and these perceptions seemed partly illusory. In turn, these perceptions of low selfdisclosure in situations characterized by partners’ unresponsive behavior predicted decreased perceptions of diagnosticity of targets’ behavior (Studies 1–3) and buffered the negative affective and interpersonal effects of unresponsive behavior (Study 4). Experimental manipulations (Studies 5 and 6) demonstrated the motivational nature of perceived self-disclosure. Collectively, the results suggest that a desire to bond with targets motivates perceivers to downplay the diagnosticity of targets’ unresponsive behavior through diminishing their self-disclosure, in turn preserving perceivers’ trust in targets’ care and commitment. Keywords: trust, responsiveness, disclosure, bias, motivation Trust that a partner values and cares for the self is an important determinant of relationship quality (Clark & Lemay, 2010; Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Reis, Clark, & Holmes, 2004). This trust facilitates the development of intimacy (Laurenceau, Barrett, & Pietromonaco, 1998; Reis & Shaver, 1988), bolsters relationship satisfaction (Lemay, Clark, & Feeney, 2007; Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 2000), motivates accommodating responses to interpersonal difficulties (Murray, Bellavia, Rose, & Griffin, 2003; Shallcross & Simpson, 2012; Wieselquist, Rusbult, Foster, & Agnew, 1999), and improves the likelihood of relationship persistence (Arriaga, Reed, Goodfriend, & Agnew, 2006; Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998). Where does this trust come from? Theorizing on interpersonal trust suggests that perceivers’ trust is based on their repeated observations of target partners’ behavior in diagnostic situations— situations in which partners’ behavior is thought to be indicative of their sentiments toward perceivers (Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Kelley et al., 2003; Shallcross & Simpson, 2012; Simpson, 2007a, 2007b). Although the conceptualizations of these situations vary, self-disclosure (i.e., the expression of information about the self) of needs and desires may be an important feature of diagnostic situations. That is, perceivers may view situations as more diagnostic of partners’ relationship motivations when they have disclosed needs or desires to their partners, relative to situations in which they have not disclosed. When perceivers have disclosed needs or desires, they have the ability to gauge their partners’ motivation to respond to those needs and desires, and these observations could impact perceivers’ trust. But is trust so serendipitous, so dependent on the information gleaned from these weighty interactions? Are perceivers helpless victims (or beneficiaries) of diagnostic situations and the messages they convey? Or perhaps is diagnosticity itself in the eye of the beholder? In the current research, we test the prediction that perceivers selectively perceive diagnosticity, including whether they have disclosed their needs and desires to partners, in a manner that supports desired conclusions regarding partners’ care and commitment. In our view, people are not passive observers of diagnostic situations. Rather, the perceived diagnosticity of situations, like most interpersonal cognitions, can be driven by perceivers’ goals. Self-Disclosure and Situational Diagnosticity We propose that perceivers are more likely to perceive partners’ behaviors as diagnostic of partners’ relationship sentiments and This article was published Online First August 12, 2013. Edward P. Lemay, Jr., Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park; Michael C. Melville, Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire. This research was supported by National Science Foundation Research Grant BCS 1145349 to Edward P. Lemay, Jr. We thank members of the Interpersonal Relationships Lab, University of New Hampshire, for their assistance with data collection and coding, including Angela Neal, Kevin Cannon, Christine Coyne, Heather Balch, Manuel Lopez, Aparecio Peggins, Ryan Keene, Monica Rosskothen, Ashley Scheidegger, Choe Shannon, Kerry Spongberg, and Benjamin Stucker. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Edward P. Lemay, Jr., Department of Psychology, Biology/Psychology Building, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. E-mail: elemay@ umd.edu This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2014, Vol. 106, No. 1, 37–57 © 2013 American Psychological Association 0022-3514/14/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0034161 37

motivations when perceivers believe they have disclosed their needs and desires to partners. The perception of this self-disclosure may contribute to their belief that partners were aware of an opportunity to respond in a supportive or otherwise prorelationship manner, which narrows the range of attributions for partners’ unresponsive behavior. That is, when partners behave in a cold, selfish, or neglectful manner, the perception that one disclosed needs and desires reduces the perceived likelihood that partners’ behavior was due to partners’ lack of awareness, increasing the likelihood that perceivers interpret this behavior as the result of partners’ lack of care, lack of commitment, or unwillingness to sacrifice for the self and relationship. In contrast, when perceivers believe they have not communicated their needs and desires to partners, lack of awareness may be a viable explanation of partners’ negative behaviors. Hence, people may often use the clarity of their own self-disclosure of needs and desires as a way of discerning whether situations should be considered diagnostic of partners’ sentiments. A number of findings are consistent with our argument that self-disclosure serves as a source of information regarding situational diagnosticity. When needs for support arise, people tend to express those needs to their partners, and this expression tends to elicit support provision from their partners (Clark & Lemay, 2010; Collins & Feeney, 2000; Laurenceau et al., 1998). Moreover, people often use self-disclosure to build close relationships (Derlega & Grzelak, 1979; Omarzu, 2000). These findings suggest that people know that disclosure sometimes elicits responsiveness, especially from partners who value and care for them. On the other hand, by revealing potentially negative information or vulnerabilities that could be exploited, disclosure also increases the risk of rejection and loss of power, and people also seem to be aware of this risk (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996; Kelly & McKillop, 1996). For instance, people with a high need for approval (Brundage, Derlega, & Cash, 1976) and who perceive a high risk of rejection (Omarzu, 2000) are reluctant to disclose personal information about themselves, and people seem to calibrate their selfdisclosure of emotion with their confidence in their partner’s care, taking the risk of revealing emotional vulnerabilities only to the extent that they are confident that this disclosure will not be met with rejection (Lemay & Clark, 2008). Hence, people do seem to be aware that self-disclosure can create a situation that reveals the partner’s sentiments toward the self and relationship, whether positive or negative. Motivated Perceptions of Lack of Disclosure When people desire to maintain a close, communal relationship with a particular partner, as indicated by strong relationship commitment (Rusbult & Buunk, 1993) and care for the partner’s welfare (Mills, Clark, Ford, & Johnson, 2004), they usually want the partner to reciprocate these sentiments (Holmes & Rempel, 1989). Indeed, care for partners’ welfare coincides with interest in partners’ reciprocating care (Clark, Dubash, & Mills, 1998), and commitment is dependent on partners exhibiting signs of reciprocated commitment (Wieselquist et al., 1999). Perceiving such reciprocation may satisfy evolved needs to forge stable bonds characterized by mutual care (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). As these relationships depend on the motivation of both partners (Attridge, Berscheid, & Simpson, 1995; Drigotas, Rusbult, & Verette, 1999), events that signal partners’ lack of care or commitment may threaten perceivers’ goals to maintain these relationships. Moreover, perceivers’ commitment and care toward a partner reflect dependence on the relationship and heighten their feelings of vulnerability to emotional pain and more tangible losses when they are confronted with the threat of abandonment or mistreatment by the partner (Lemay, Overall, & Clark, 2012; Murray, Holmes, & Collins, 2006; Wieselquist et al., 1999). People engage in a variety of strategies to reduce these feelings of vulnerability (see Murray et al., 2006). For instance, they may engage in prorelationship behaviors that make partners feel similarly dependent on the relationship, which may restore power imbalances and reduce the perceived likelihood of rejection (Murray et al., 2009). Alternatively, they may withdraw their psychological investment in the relationship and devalue their partner as a source of connection, which could also restore power imbalances and reduce the sting of anticipated rejection (Murray et al., 2000). Most relevant to the current research, people may regulate their feelings of vulnerability through the use of motivated cognitive strategies that govern the appraisal of situations and interpretation of partners’ behaviors (see Murray et al., 2006). For instance, people who protect themselves from the threat of rejection by reducing dependence and devaluing the partner may interpret the partner’s behaviors in negative ways that facilitate and justify this distancing decision, whereas people who decide to manage feelings of vulnerability by seeking greater connection with the partner may interpret the same behavior in positive ways that provide reassurance regarding the partner’s trustworthiness and therefore motivate and justify continued dependence (see Murray et al., 2006). These cognitive strategies may target perceptions of situational diagnosticity. Strategies involving reduction of dependence on the partner may involve perceiving cold, neglectful, or selfish behaviors as especially diagnostic of the partner’s underlying sentiments and motivations. Strategies that involve maintaining connection and trust may instead include perceiving such unresponsive behaviors as irrelevant to the partner’s true feelings and relationship motives, which would help justify a decision to maintain connection. Of course, motivated perceivers could also try to regulate trust by altering their views of whether partners behaved in unresponsive ways, and some findings suggest that people do have biased perceptions (Lemay & Clark, 2008; Lemay et al., 2007) and memories (Lemay & Neal, 2013) of partners’ responsiveness. However, the presence of unresponsive behavior may sometimes be so clear that the occurrence of the behavior is undeniable, requiring perceivers to rely on other strategies to facilitate their connection goals, such as redefining the situation. Under these conditions, altering perceptions of situational diagnosticity may be a commonly used method of reaching the desired conclusion that the partner still cares for the self and relationship. However, motivation does not have an unfettered influence over cognitive process (otherwise people would never experience undesired cognitions). Perceivers’ ability to reach desired conclusions is constrained by their ability to construct seemingly reasonable justifications for those conclusions (Kunda, 1990). This constraint may be relevant to perceivers’ attempts at redefining situations. Perceivers would likely have nagging doubts about their own objectivity if they were to deny the diagnosticity of partners’ unresponsive behavior without a seemingly rational justification. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. 38 LEMAY AND MELVILLE

To achieve a sense of conviction in the conclusion that unresponsive behaviors are nondiagnostic, they must be able to point to seemingly supportive evidence. We expect that perceivers often underestimate their own self-disclosure of needs and desires as a way of supporting the claim that partners’ behaviors lack diagnosticity. For a number of reasons, this strategy may be especially compelling. First, this strategy depends on a judgment regarding own behavior (whether one clearly communicated needs and desires to partners). Judgments regarding one’s own behavior tend to be made with less accuracy and clarity than judgments of one’s own internal states or others’ behavior (Andersen, Glassman, & Gold, 1998; Vazire, 2010), and this may indicate greater leeway for cognitive distortion of perceivers’ own behavior relative to other strategies, such as those that involve altering perceptions of the behaviors enacted by partners. Second, insufficient disclosure may be argued on the basis of asymmetries in information regarding needs and desires conveyed to partners versus information that is privately experienced. Given that people do not usually express every nuance of their internal experiences, they may easily generate counterfactual thoughts regarding the information that would have elicited partners’ responsiveness, if only it were conveyed (e.g., “I should have expressed how important it was to me”). Third, attributing partners’ unresponsive behavior to perceivers’ own lack of disclosure shifts the responsibility for partners’ unresponsive behavior from partners to perceivers, leaving intact perceivers’ sense of control regarding partners’ responsiveness in future interactions (i.e., next time, if I more clearly disclose my needs, my partner will be responsive) and circumventing potentially destructive feelings of anger (Lemay et al., 2012; Quigley & Tedeschi, 1996; Weiner, Graham, & Chandler, 1982). Perceivers’ chronic relationship motives may determine the use of these strategies. Strong desires to maintain bonds may shift the perceived utility of the available risk-regulation strategies, such that strategies that manage vulnerability by bolstering connection and security, including underestimating disclosure of needs and desires in the face of partners’ unresponsive behavior, are preferred over strategies that manage vulnerability by reducing dependence on the partner. This prediction is consistent with interdependence theoretical perspectives on motivated interpersonal cognition. According to interdependence theory, people who strongly want to maintain close relationships (i.e., people who are high in commitment) are motivated to defend their relationships from threat (Rusbult & Van Lange, 1996; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). Consistent with this framework, highly committed individuals perceive their relationships as superior to others’ relationships (Rusbult, Lange, Wildschut, Yovetich, & Verette, 2000), and they devalue alternative romantic partners (Johnson & Rusbult, 1989), both of which can maintain their feelings of commitment. Moreover, these commitment-enhancing perceptions are strengthened when perceivers are under threat, suggesting that they reflect motivated processes (Johnson & Rusbult, 1989; Rusbult et al., 2000). Similarly, individuals who care for their partners’ welfare tend to perceive their partners as similarly caring in return, even when this does not reflect partners’ true sentiments (Lemay & Clark, 2008; Lemay et al., 2007). Research examining positive illusions in relationships (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 1996a, 1996b) similarly suggests that people view their partners in ways that are consistent with their romantic ideals to justify their own commitment and that these illusions can enhance relationship quality for both partners. Research on motivated inaccuracy in close relationships also suggests that people are inaccurate at reading their partners’ minds when inaccuracy protects them from recognizing threatening information and that this process promotes relationship longevity (Ickes & Simpson, 2003; Simpson, Ickes, & Blackstone, 1995). Hence, in the current research, we expect that motivated perceivers exhibit a bias in which they underestimate their own self-disclosure in unresponsive situations—situations in which partners behave (or are perceived to behave) in a cold, selfish, or neglectful manner. That is, perceivers who strongly value targets should perceive less disclosure of their needs and desires following targets’ unresponsive behavior relative to other situations (i.e., situations in which the partner does not behave in an unresponsive manner), and comparison of disclosure perceptions to external indicators of perceivers’ disclosure should suggest that perceivers underestimate their disclosure in these unresponsive situations. In turn, underestimating disclosure should facilitate the conclusion that partners’ behavior is not diagnostic of their sentiments. In other words, motivated perceivers may exhibit a backward logic (backward relative to the logic implied in most theorizing on trust) in which they judge situations as diagnostic based on their implications for trust. They see situations are diagnostic, and as characterized by the self-disclosure of needs and desires that makes them so, when partners behave in a caring or otherwise prorelationship manner, but they claim inadequate disclosure to see situations as nondiagnostic when partners behave in unresponsive ways that could undermine trust. In addition to being consistent with research on biased judgments of interpersonal relationships, this prediction coincides with research on diagnosticity biases, which suggests that people see events as conveying desired information (Vorauer & Ross, 1993) and with general research on motivated reasoning, which suggests that people construct biased impressions, beliefs, and evaluations that support desired conclusions (Kunda, 1990). Hence, it seems plausible that motivations to maintain relationships with targets can bias perceptions of selfdisclosure, as these perceptions could support the desired conclusion that targets’ unresponsive behavior is not diagnostic, which could protect trust and maintain interdependence. Relation to Other Theoretical Views on Self-Disclosure Our prediction that perceivers who most value relationships wish to see lack of self-disclosure in some situations contradicts most theoretical frameworks involving self-disclosure, which posit that disclosure has positive interpersonal consequences and plays a key role in the maintenance of relationships. For instance, Reis and Shaver’s (1988) model of intimacy proposes that intimacy develops through a process of disclosing important information about the self to a partner and then receiving a responsive response. Similarly, social penetration theory (Altman & Taylor, 1973) proposes that relationship closeness involves increases in the depth of self-disclosure. A number of findings support these views. Self-disclosure has a consistent positive association with relationship evaluations (e.g., Finkenauer, Engels, Branje, & Meeus, 2004; Finkenauer & Righetti, 2011; Hendrick, 1981; Hendrick, Hendrick, & Adler, 1988; Laurenceau et al., 1998; Meeks, Hendrick, & Hendrick, 1998; Pollmann & Finkenauer, 2009). Moreover, metaThis document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. DIMINISHING SELF-DISCLOSURE 39

analyses on self-disclosure suggest that intimate disclosures enhance attraction between disclosers and listeners (Collins & Miller, 1994). From this point of view, people who want relationships should hardly feel threatened by the perception of self-disclosure. To the contrary, their perception of disclosure may even be desired and reassuring. We do not dispute that self-disclosure often has benefits. However, we believe that a more nuanced approach can reveal the situational factors that shape the meaning and consequences of disclosure. None of the findings described above examined perceptions of self-disclosure of needs and desires in situations characterized by the partner’s lack of responsiveness. Hence, none of the findings examined the potentially threatening consequence (i.e., perceived diagnosticity of unresponsive behaviors) of perceived self-disclosure that we have emphasized. Indeed, most of the studies concluding that disclosure enhances relationships involved assessments of self-disclosure that were based on acrosssituation generalizations (i.e., the degree to which one generally discloses to a particular partner). We would agree that, when measured in this way, high self-disclosure should be associated with positive relationship functioning, as it would suggest the building of intimacy and general trust in the partner’s responsiveness to self-disclosure (Reis & Shaver, 1988). These global measures, however, may mask important contextual effects. In specific situations, self-disclosure of needs and desires should increase the likelihood that perceivers define the situation as diagnostic of partners’ sentiments. Therefore, following perceived selfdisclosure, perceivers should feel trust when partners behave in a responsive manner, but lack of trust when they behave in an unresponsive manner. Overview The conceptual model guiding the present research appears in Figure 1. According to this model, perceivers judge their own self-disclosure of needs and desires in accordance with their partner’s responsive behavior, which includes underestimating disclosure when the partner is unresponsive. This process should be stronger when perceivers highly value their relationship with the partner. In turn, given that perceived self-disclosure of needs and desires is thought to serve as a diagnosticity cue, underestimating disclosure should be directly related to perceiving the partner’s behavior as less diagnostic of the partner’s sentiments. We test these views in six studies. In Studies 1 and 2, using two different methodologies, we contrasted global perceptions of self-disclosure with perceptions of self-disclosure in specific situations characterized by target partners’ lack of responsiveness. Consistent with the large body of research suggesting that global self-disclosure has positive relationship consequences, we expected that motivated perceivers (i.e., perceivers who strongly value a relationship with targets) would claim high global self-disclosure. However, consistent with our analysis of disclosure as diagnosticity, we expected that these perceivers would see lack of disclosure in situations characterized by targets’ lack of responsiveness. Furthermore, we expected that this pattern of high global self-disclosure and low self-disclosure in situations characterized by partners’ unresponsive behavior would be associated with the most positive relationship perceptions (i.e., reduced perceptions of diagnosticity of partners’ unresponsive behavior and increased trust). In Study 3, we used a daily report study to test this model with regard to daily interactions between romantic partners. In Study 4, we tested the model using a behavioral observation study. In Studies 5 and 6, we experimentally manipulated desire to bond and reduction of threat, respectively, to test predictions regarding the motivational nature of this bias. Study 1: Perceptions of Hypothetical Events In Study 1, we compared perceivers’ global perceptions of self-disclosure of needs and desires with their perceptions of self-disclosure in unresponsive situations (those characterized by targets’ lack of responsiveness). This comparison is central to the distinction between prior research and theory on self-disclosure and the current model. As we described earlier, prior research reveals positive associations of relationship sentiments with global self-disclosure, suggesting that the existence or perception of global disclosure can maintain and enhance relationships. However, perceiving insufficient self-disclosure in unresponsive situations may undermine the diagnosticity of partners’ unresponsive behavior and therefore maintain trust in partners’ care and commitment, a desirable outcome for perceivers who strongly value maintaining relationships with partners. Hence, perceivers who strongly value their partners should be much more likely to report more global self-disclosure (i.e., that they disclose generally) relative to self-disclosure in specific situations characterized by the partner’s unresponsive behavior. In addition, perceivers who strongly value their partners should report more global selfdisclosure in their relationships relative to perceivers who do not strongly value their partners. However, when with regard to unresponsive situations, perceivers who value partners should perceive low disclosure, perhaps just as low as the disclosure perceived by those who do not value partners. This tendency to see low selfdisclosure in unresponsive situations should be associated with reduced perceptions of diagnosticity in these situations and more trust in partners’ care and commitment. In contrast, and consistent with prior research on the relational benefits of global selfdisclosure in most other contexts, global perceptions of selfdisclosure should be associated with positive relationship percepPartner's Level of + Responsiveness Perceived SelfDisclosure of Needs and Desire Perceived Diagnosticity of Partner's Behavior Partner Valuing + + Figure 1. Conceptual model guiding the present research. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. 40 LEMAY AND MELVILLE

tions (i.e., perceiving unresponsive behaviors as nondiagnostic and trusting partners’ care and commitment). We tested these predictions using hypothetical vignettes, which allowed us to capture general explanatory styles while holding constant the specific features of interactions. Prior research on attributions in relationships suggests that studies using this methodology produce results that are parallel to studies examining attributions of actual events (Bradbury & Fincham, 1990). We directly address this issue by examining actual events in Study 2. Method Participants. A sample of 288 participants (M age 33 years; 90 males; 195 females) was recruited using two methods. Advertisements were posted on local Internet bulletin boards across the continental United States inviting participants to complete the questionnaire in exchange for entry in cash raffles. In addition, participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, an open website that offers “workers” the ability to complete brief tasks over the Internet in exchange for a small payment. Prior research suggests that samples collected via Amazon Mechanical Turk are more demographically diverse than typical online and college student samples and that data quality is comparable (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011). The racial distribution was as follows: 73.5% Caucasian, 9.1% African American, 11.3% Asian, and 6.1% other.1 Procedure. Participants completed a questionnaire posted on the Internet. We randomly assigned participants to complete the questionnaire with regard to a valued or devalued partner. Participants who were assigned to the valued partner condition were asked to complete the questionnaire with regard to someone they “see often and care very much about.” Participants who were assigned to the devalued partner condition were asked to complete the questionnaire with regard to someone they “see often but do not care very much about.” Participants then completed the measures of partner valuing and global self-disclosure described below. Next, they read four hypothetical vignettes in which this partner behaved in an unresponsive manner (i.e., the partner did not invite the participant to an event the participant wanted to attend, the partner did not seem interested in talking about the participant’s upsetting experience at school or work, the partner rejected the participant’s request for a ride to the airport, and the partner made a critical remark about the participant regarding a personal quality about which the participant was insecure). After each scenario, participants completed the scenario-specific measures described below. Finally, participants completed the measures of global trust described below. Measures. Partner valuing (manipulation check measures). Participants completed a five-item measure of care for the partner that was adapted from the Communal Strength Scale (Mills et al., 2004; e.g., “Helping [partner name] is a high priority for me”; “I care for [partner name]’s needs”; Cronbach’s .93), a five-item measure of commitment adapted from the Investment Model Scale (Rusbult, Martz, & Agnew, 1998; e.g., “I want our relationship to last for a very long time”; “I am committed to maintaining my relationship with [partner name]”; Cronbach’s .93) and a four-item measure of desire to be valued by the partner (e.g., “I want [partner name] to be committed to our relationship”; “I want [partner name] to have positive views of me”; Cronbach’s .94). Items were completed on 7-point response scales (1 strongly disagree; 7 strongly agree). Perceived global self-disclosure. Participants completed a three-item measure assessing global perceptions of their selfdisclosure of needs, desires, and feelings (e.g., “I do not clearly communicate my desires to [partner name]”; “I do not clearly communicate my needs to [partner name]”; “I do not clearly communicate my feelings to [partner name]”; Cronbach’s .92). Items were completed on 7-point response scales (1 strongly disagree; 7 strongly agree). Items were worded in the negative direction to maximize comparability with the scenario-specific measure described below, but they were reverse-scored so that higher values indicate more self-disclosure. Scenario-specific measures. For each hypothetical scenario, participants completed an item assessing perceived diagnosticity of the partner’s unresponsive behavior (e.g., “[Partner name] would do this because [partner name] did not want to spend time with me”; “[Partner name] would do this because [partner name] did not care about my feelings”; “[Partner name] would do this because [partner name] did not care about me”). Items were completed on 7-point response scales (1 strongly disagree; 7 strongly agree; Cronbach’s .93) and were averaged across the four vignettes. Higher values indicate greater perceived diagnosticity of the unresponsive behavior. Using the same response scales, participants also completed an item assessing disclosure of needs, feelings, and preferences with regard to each situation (e.g., “[Partner name] would do this because I did not clearly express my desires to go”; “[Partner name] would do this because I did not clearly express my needs to [partner name]”; “[Partner name] would do this because I did not clearly express my situation to [partner name]”; Cronbach’s .77). Items were averaged across all four vignettes and scored so that higher scores reflected greater situation-specific perceived disclosure. Global trust in partner’s care and commitment. Participants completed measures of perceived partner care and perceived partner commitment that were analogous to the own care and own commitment measures described above (e.g., “Helping me is a high priority for [partner name]”; “[Partner name] wants our relationship to last for a long time”; Cronbach’s s .88 and .91). Scores on these measures were averaged to create an index of global trust in the partner’s care and commitment (Cronbach’s .94). 1 The challenges of conducting research over the Internet are well documented (Kraut et al., 2004). These challenges include multiple submissions by the same individual, inability to control the testing environment, which introduces noise, high dropout rates, and reductions of participants’ investment of time and energy into the research tasks. We took a number of steps to address these issues. First, we tracked Internet protocol (IP) addresses and eliminated submissions that were identical to a prior submission with regard to both the IP address and the participant’s age, which should address the problem of repeat responders. Second, to address issues of reduced investment of time and energy, we tracked questionnaire completion times and eliminated all responses provided by participants who did not spend more than 5 min on the questionnaire. All analyses were conducted after implementing this rule. Third, to mitigate the issue of increased noise, we collected large samples. These procedures also were implemented in the other online studies. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. DIMINISHING SELF-DISCLOSURE 41