Chapter 9

· Go to the website http://psychologytoday.psychtests.com/tests/self_disclosure_general_access.html

Take the self-disclosure test. Did your score surprise you? Why is it important to understand the how you self-disclose?

I actually did surprise myself with my score. My results said that I scored 48 out of 100, which was higher than I expected. I realize that my levels of self-disclosure are much lower than they probably should be. I suppose that the cause of my higher-than-expected score is that when I do become very close with someone, I tend to self-disclose exponentially more than I do with other people. In the end, I suppose it averages out.

I believe it is important to understand how you self-disclose so that you can be aware of areas in your life that may require more or less self-disclosure than you currently give. For example, I know that when meeting new people, I should not be as reluctant to self-disclose as I usually am. On the other hand, it is just as important to know when “enough is enough”, and you should not disclose as much as you think might be necessary for the situation!

· Go to the website http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl

What is your attachment style / intimacy style? Did you find your results surprising? Why or why not?

My attachment-related anxiety score was 5.70 out of 7. My attachment-related avoidance score was 3.70 out of 7. These results combined produced the overall result of a “preoccupied” attachment/intimacy style. According to the description, people who fall into the preoccupied style feel comfortable expressing emotions, but also have a great deal of negative emotions, which causes conflicting relationships.

According to this definition, I am not very surprised by my results. Looking back on past relationships, as well as current relationships, once I become comfortable with the person I am usually really open with them. It usually does result in conflicts, however, because I tend to struggle with a lot of negative emotions. When you are willing to talk about your emotions, but most of those emotions are negative, it will almost always cause a strain on the relationship!

· Go to the website http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/siukaice/openness.htm

Take the openness quiz. Are you more open or closed? Do agree with the results? Why or why not?

According to my results, I am “getting there but will still have to work at being more open”. I agree with these results. In high school, I was a very closed person. Upon coming to college, however, I have found the importance of being an open person. I have worked throughout the past three years to change my thinking into that of a more open personality. I think that being more open will allow me to be more successful, not only in school, but in life in general. This is because it will help me to see things from others’ points of view, and learn to improve upon my mistakes.