ABSTRACT
Recognizing the important, but unheralded close cousin of self-disclosure, Laura Guerrero and Walid Afifi (1995a) initiated the study of topic avoidance. Topic avoidance is distinct from concealing secrets in that all parties are aware of the information that is being suppressed or avoided whereas secrets are the privileged domain of a few. For example, we might choose not-to talk about the fact that Uncle Horace spent time in prison, but it is not a secret that is kept hidden. Secrets, a specific form of topic avoidance, are subsumed within the broader study of topic avoidance (W. Afifi & Guerrero, 2000). Four relational theories, including uncertainty reduction theory, social penetration, communication boundary management, and dialectic theory inform the study of topic avoidance and each suggests that information is regulated through self-disclosure in concert with shares of restraint. Guerrero and Afifi concluded that what is concealed and revealed in conversation has a profound effect on both the depth and limits to intimacy in personal, and more specifically, family relationships. Indeed, countless studies bear out the need and the function for both disclosure and restraint as keys to healthy satisfying relationships (Caughlin & Petronio, 2004).
