Effects of new communication media and gender on self-disclosure

Abstract

Considering the importance of self-disclosure in building relationships, it is vital to understand how people self-disclose when using communication media in cyberspace. By comparing four communication media (face-to-face, video, and embodied virtual reality (VR) with realistic/unrealistic avatars), we investigated the extent to which people self-disclose through video and embodied VR and how the gender pairing between the people disclosing and being disclosed to affects this. We analysed 144 participants (72 dyads) discussing personal topics. The results showed no noticeable difference in the degree of self-disclosure between video and face-to-face. The results also showed that embodied VR, especially with unrealistic avatars, facilitated more self-disclosure on personal feelings than face-to-face, whereas subjective experiences differed little between embodied VR and face-to-face. The gender pairing affected self-disclosure, with the female-to-female pairing having the highest degree of self-disclosure across many measures, regardless of the communication medium, particularly the disclosure of personal information. Furthermore, the higher degree of self-disclosure on personal feelings in embodied VR above was mainly because of the higher degree of self-disclosure by users who disclosed to a male. Potential explanations and implications are discussed.