Content area
Abstract
Previous research has established that intimacy develops due to honest and emotional (rather than factual) self-disclosure that is validated and reciprocated within a dyad (Reis & Shaver, 1988). Further research has found that attachment style predicts one’s desired degree of intimacy within close relationships, in that attachment anxiety predicts greater degrees of felt intimacy and attachment avoidance predicts lesser degrees of felt intimacy (Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Shaver & Mikulincer, 2002). The present work partnered heterosexual and single male and female young adults on a video conference platform (i.e., Zoom) for a 15-minute mock dating study to investigate the naturalistic effects of attachment style and emotional self-disclosure on the development of felt intimacy at zero-acquaintance. A parallel process multilevel latent growth curve analysis (n=112) was run to examine such effects.
