Susan Sprecher
Susan Sprecher is a relationships researcher at Illinois State University, as stated on her 2015 paper with Stanislav Treger in Personal Relationships. The paper tested a simple question about getting acquainted: does it matter whether two people take turns revealing things, or one talks and then the other?
Who they are
Sprecher studies attraction and close relationships. This site draws on the 2015 paper only.
This page records only what the papers and their published records state. Biography beyond the cited work is not given here.
Key papers
The benefits of turn-taking reciprocal self-disclosure in get-acquainted interactions (2015), with Stanislav Treger. Pairs who took turns disclosing reported greater attraction than pairs in which one person disclosed and then the other, especially after the first interaction. Feeling that the other person was responsive, enjoying the conversation and sensing that they were liked helped explain the difference.
Key ideas
The central idea is that reciprocity matters as much as content. The same disclosures build more liking when they are exchanged than when they arrive as two monologues. That is the mechanism behind disclosure reciprocity, and it explains why structured exercises such as Arthur Aron's 36 questions alternate between partners.
Sources
- Sprecher, S., & Treger, S. (2015). The benefits of turn-taking reciprocal self-disclosure in get-acquainted interactions. Personal Relationships, 22(3), 460-475. doi:10.1111/pere.12090