Gill, A. J, & Oberlander, J. (2002). Taking care of the linguistic features of extraversion. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 24. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6n5652cx
Gill and Oberlander share their findings of Extraverts talking more than Introverts. With the hypotheses of Extroverts being louder and engaging more frequently in conversations, Introverts were believed to speak less due to their tendency to speak in depth on fewer, yet specific topics. The overall method used to analyze the differences was in written texts, such as email. Participants were asked to compose two emails to a close friend that they hadn’t been in contact with recently. The writing of the email was not asked to be formal since an understanding of how an oral conversation would have gone was needed. The final result confirmed that even in written text, Extroverts tend to type/talk more than Introverts. The literature also points out that studying the role of gender in this particular study could have also been done to get an even greater understanding. Gill and Oberlander’s work can be incorporated into my research through the design and method sections. In the questionnaire that will be provided, an opportunity to compose a written text will be given to participants. This will aid in deciphering the intimacy levels participants have with their friend’s, through the amount they write and the amount they personally disclose of themselves. This will also allow for there to be a discussion on the possibility of gender being a variable when interacting and conversing, since personality traits from the Eysenck EPQ-R personality test can play a role in intimacy levels and friendship.
Rose, A., Smith, R., Glick, G., & Schwartz-Mette, R. (2016). Girls’ and boys’ problem talk: Implications for emotional closeness in friendships. Developmental Psychology, 52(4), 629-639. doi:10.1037/dev0000096
After a review of the literature, three types of responses are said to occur in adolescent conversations among females and males. During problem talk, positive and negative responses are said to occur commonly, yet a third option of humor arises at times depending on the gender and closeness of the social group. During the testing of the differences in gender in problem talk, the construct of closeness and intimacy had to be defined to comprehend the relationship/friendship of the participants to later associate the level of personal disclosure. The overall procedure required a completion of a questionnaire to identify the emotional closeness of the friends. Participants were given the activity of separately planning a party, then later coming together to discuss the problems that can arise at the hypothetical parties. The findings showed that when talking about their friends’ problem (friend-problem statements), closeness between the two was evident. For own-problem statements, the adolescents also showed that there was a relation to feeling close over time. This literature can be incorporated into my own research through its design of defining closeness and its method of questionnaires. The ability to sit classmates with their friends is not possible, so creating a questionnaire will allow for the research to construct a definition of intimacy for college students, since an interpretation of its meaning can vary from person to person. By providing operational definitions of closeness, the participants will answer with options they believe resonate with them the most.
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