Disclosure Processes in Children and Adolescents

To be known, and to know others, is critical to all social relationships. The topic of "disclosure processes" pertains not only to people's disclosure of daily thoughts and emotions, but to their disclosure of many controversial problems in contemporary society, such as divorce, AIDS, and sexual abuse. The bulk of research has focused on disclosure processes in adults, and relatively little attention has been given to those phenomena in children and adolescents. The chapters in this book redress the balance by systematically examining disclosure processes in children and adolescents. They cover how, to whom, and the conditions under which children and adolescents reveal their personal thoughts and emotions. They include new research, extensive reviews of the research, and a focus on the contemporary issues of the role of disclosure processes in family therapy and sexual abuse. This book will be of interest to developmental psychologists, social psychologists, clinical psychologists, social workers, education specialists, and nurses.

List of contributors; 1. Disclosure processes: an introduction Ken J. Rotenburg; 2. Patterns and functions of self-disclosure during childhood and adolescence Duane Buhrmester and Karen Prager; 3. Intimacy and self-disclosure in friendships Thomas J. Berndt and Nancy A. Hanna; 4. Self-disclosure and the sibling relationship: what did Romulus tell Remus? Nina Howe, Jasmin Aquan-Assee and William M. Bukowski; 5. Lonely preadolescents' disclosure to familiar peers and related social perceptions Ken J. Rotenburg and Mona Holowatuik; 6. Children's disclosure of vicariously induced emotions Nancy Eisenberg and Richard A. Fabes; 7. Moral development and children's differential disclosure to adults versus peers Ken J. Rotenberg; 8. Parental influences on children's willingness to disclose Beverly I. Fagot, Karen Luks and Jovonna Poe; 9. Disclosure processes: issues for child sexual abuse victims Kay Bussey and Elizabeth J. Grimbeek; 10. Self-disclosure in adolescents: a family systems perspective H. Russell Searight, Susan L. Thomas, Christopher M. Manley and Timothy U. Ketterson; Author index; Subject index.