Jourard and Friedman

Megan Hill

Ameer Almuaybid

PSY 202

10/14/15

Jourard & Friedman Summary

   The purpose of the study, Jourard and Friedman, is to observe the intimacy between the experimenter and the subject and to see if they reciprocate or deny the actions being presented.  This study is an extension of a previous research study done by Argyle and Dean in 1965. There study proposed the ‘distance equilibrium hypothesis’ which examined eye contact and body language determined by self-disclosure. Jourard and Friedman went more in depth with Argyle and Dean’s study by expanding the research into two different experiments and to focus more on the distance between the experimenter and the subject. Their beginning research question is “Will subjects approached by an experimenter respond to certain techniques by retreating, or will they respond by decreasing the distance between the two of them?” (Jourard & Friedman, 1970).      

   In this research study, there are two different experiments preformed. The first experiment consisted of three groups of college students, eight females and 8 males, which had three different degrees of distance. Group one received a tape recorder and were asked to give out personal information while the experimenter was outside the room. The second group was asked to disclose personal information while the experimenter was in the room but the experimenter avoided eye contact with the subjects. And the third group disclosed personal information while the experimenter was in the room but the experimenter continuously gave eye contact to the subjects. There results varied between gender. The self-disclosure duration increased with every situation. And for women, the self-disclosure reduced from the beginning of talking through a tape recorder to talking to the experimenter in the room.

    In the second experiment, 100 undergraduates, half male and half female, were asked to fill out a 21 question questionnaire about self-disclosure in the beginning. And then 32 of males and 32 females got assigned into four different groups, eight males and eight females. All the subjects were matched up from what the results were from the questionnaire. Before getting in groups, the subjects got eight cards to answers another eight question questionaire. The first group read out loud the question and chose to answer them or not while the experimenter only responded nods and grunts. The second group had the exact same procedure as group one except the experimenter touched the subjects back when they walked in the room. And in the third group the experimenter talked briefly about himself and then the subjects proceeded to do the same thing as the first two groups. The last and finally group got touched on the back like group two and the experimenter briefly talked about himself like in group three. The results supported Jourard and Friedman’s theories, which was when the experimenter revealed personal information about himself and when the experimenter touched the subjects back, the subjects disclosed for a longer time. Plus, when they combined those two results, the subject self-disclosed for an even longer time.