Friendship 275■ Males may score higher than females on other kinds of
competition, such as competition for social comparison
or personal development competition, but these kinds
of competition are not likely to inhibit intimacy.
■ Homophobia limits intimacy among men’s same-sex
friendships. Men do not want to appear to be homo-
sexual and infer homosexuality from expressions of
affection between men.
■ Men refrain from expressing emotion in their relationships
with other men, because expressing emotion is viewed
as weakness and as feminine. It is difficult to be close to
someone when you hide your feelings from them.
■ Another reason that men do not disclose as much as
women is because people do not respond as favorably
to self-disclosure by men compared to women. If people
have negative views of men who disclose their problems,
it is not surprising that men are reluctant to ask for help.self-disclose. A meta-analysis of the studies
that examined the relation of self-disclosure
to liking showed the relation was stronger
for female disclosers (d=+.30) than male
disclosers (d=+.11) (Collins & Miller, 1994).
This finding held for both female and male
respondents. In other words, both women
and men liked a woman who disclosed more
than a man who disclosed.
Men who self-disclose might be viewed
as having more problems than women who
self-disclose. This idea was supported by
a study conducted a very long time ago in
which college students read several vignettes
in which one person either did or did not
disclose a personal problem (a mental illness
or a car accident; Derlega & Chaikin, 1976).
The sex of the discloser and the sex of the re-
cipient were varied. Men were rated as better
adjusted under nondisclosure than disclosure
conditions, whereas women were rated as
better adjusted under disclosure than nondis-
closure conditions. The sex of the disclosure
recipient did not influence the results. In ad-
dition, participants liked the female discloser
better than the female nondiscloser but liked
the male discloser and nondiscloser equally.
Regardless of sex, the discloser was rated as
more feminine than the nondiscloser. Thus
self-disclosure was viewed as part of the fe-
male gender role. Try Do Gender 8.3 to see
if men are still viewed less favorably than
women when they self-disclose.TAKE HOME POINTS
■ Male friendship is more overtly competitive than female
friendship. Competition among females is more likely
to be covert.
■ There are different kinds of competition, only some of
which may be barriers to intimacy among men. Hyper-
competitiveness is one such form of competition.DO GENDER 8.3
Do You Want to Be Friends
with a Guy Who Discloses
a Personal Problem?Create two vignettes that contain a story
about someone disclosing a problem. In one
vignette, make the disclosure more personal
than the other vignette. Now, vary the sex
of the person engaging in self-disclosure
across the two vignettes so that you have
two versions of each vignette. Randomly
assign a group of college students to read
one of the vignettes and then answer some
questions about how they viewed the person
in the story. Did they view female and male
disclosures differently in terms of personal-
ity traits? in terms of likeability and desir-
ability for friendship? in mental health?
If you want to make the design more
complicated, you can also take the opportu-
nity to vary the recipient of disclosure. Are
people more accepting of a male who reveals
a personal problem to a female than a male?M08_HELG0185_04_SE_C08.indd 275 6/21/11 8:12 AM