Self-Disclosure and Marital Satisfaction Revisited

Abstract

Gilbert's (1976) curvilinear model of marital satisfaction and self-disclosure is reinterpreted in terms of an interaction effect between quantity of self-disclosure and quality of self-disclosure. In rural and urban samples of marital couples, regression analyses yielded some support for a significant interaction effect but of a different form than expected. Especially for wives, combinations of low quantity and low quality were found to be extremely detrimental for marital satisfaction. Implications for family life education and marital therapy programs are discussed.