Lynn Carol Miller
Lynn Carol Miller is a researcher in communication and psychology and the co-author, with Nancy Collins, of the 1994 Psychological Bulletin meta-analysis of self-disclosure and liking. The paper lists her in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences and the Department of Psychology at the University of Southern California.
Who they are
Miller works where communication research and social psychology meet. This site draws on the 1994 review only.
This page records only what the papers and their published records state. Biography beyond the cited work is not given here.
Key papers
Self-disclosure and liking: a meta-analytic review (1994), Collins and Miller. Across 94 effect sizes, people who disclosed were liked more, on average by a small margin, with the link strongest in ongoing relationships and reversed in field studies where a stranger disclosed something intimate in public.
Key ideas
The central idea is that self-disclosure is a social act judged by its setting. The same revelation can draw a listener closer in a friendship and push a stranger away in a public place. That is the nuance most popular advice about opening up leaves out.
Sources
- Collins, N. L., & Miller, L. C. (1994). Self-disclosure and liking: a meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 116(3), 457-475. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.116.3.457