Coordination of Self-Disclosure and Gossip in Adolescent Conversations

Reciprocity is a commonly observed form of social of coordination, seen in verbal and nonverbal behavior of humans across the life span. Verbalized affect is only one form of self-disclosure. This chapter examines disclosure reciprocity in adolescent conversations using a more direct and exhaustive coding system. It examines the sequential relation between gossip and self-disclosure. In middle childhood, gossip is a vehicle for exploring social norms about inclusion/exclusion and building solidarity. An analysis of gossip-disclosure transition probabilities did not reveal temporal associations between these two codes, nor did it indicate a sex difference in sequential dependency of disclosure on gossip.