Response Matching in Interpersonal Information Exchange

Response matching was studied in dyads as subjects exchanged information about themselves by selecting descriptive statements prescaled for intimacy. One of the members of the dyad was a confederate, who consistently selected statements at one of five different intimacy levels: low, moderately low, moderate, moderately high and high. The findings showed that subjects significantly matched the intimacy level of the confederate's disclosures. The results shed additional light on the role of idiosyncratic patterns of self‐disclosure as a variable altering the social penetration process as delineated by Altman & Haythorn.