How can people connect more deeply through self-disclosure? Testing the linguistic, nonverbal, and neural mechanisms of successful communication

孤独对健康、生产力和幸福感的威胁越来越大。为了应对其后果，找到让人们与他人联系的方法变得越来越重要。人们建立社会关系的一种方式是与他人分享他们的经历(即自我表露)。成功的自我表露可以让听众更好地了解说话者的经历，更深入地了解他们是谁，并最终建立更好的社会关系。然而，自我表露并不总是能达到这一目标。这项工作探索了自我表露何时以及如何促进社交联系，揭示了谈话伙伴如何形成共同的理解。这些发现为未来的干预措施制定促进社会联系的沟通策略奠定了基础。为了实现这些目标，目前的工作解决了两个关键问题。在第一个目标中，这项工作确定了自我表露的策略，使个人能够有效地将他们的经历传达给听众。令人惊讶的是，关于人们如何帮助听众理解他们的研究有限。挑战在于，在不干扰听众或仅依赖他们的主观评估的情况下，准确衡量共同的理解。神经同步性是衡量两个大脑随着时间推移处理相似事件的程度，已经成为帮助听者理解说话人经历细节的一种机制。通过观察两个大脑如何在不中断自然交流体验的情况下从一个时刻连接到另一个时刻(使用神经成像技术)，这项研究揭示了促进成功沟通的语言元素(例如，情感、生动和反思的语言)和非语言元素(例如，声音模式、沉默停顿、语速)。在它的第二个目标中，目前的工作试图发现对话伙伴是如何发展出共享意义的感觉的。目前尚不清楚神经同步是否能使听众超越对说话者经历的基本理解，并对他们的个性特征、动机和生活故事有更深入的了解。因此，目前的研究衡量了人们如何对说话者在自我表露过程中试图传达的关于自己的细微差别信息形成共同的解释，以检验神经同步在多大程度上帮助听者理解说话者披露的更深层次的含义，而不仅仅是直截了当地了解事实。这些发现有助于增强关于自我披露如何促进人与人之间的共同理解的理论框架，并帮助未来的学者制定建立社会联系的战略。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Loneliness is a growing threat to health, productivity, and well-being. To combat its consequences, it is increasingly important to find ways for people to connect with others. One way people can build social connection is through sharing their experiences with others (i.e., self-disclosure). Successful self-disclosure allows listeners to gain a better understanding of the speaker's experiences, deeper insights into who they are, and ultimately, better social connection. However, self-disclosure does not always achieve this goal. This work explores when and how self-disclosure promotes social connection, shedding light on how conversation partners develop shared understandings. The findings set the stage for future interventions to develop communication strategies to promote social connection.To achieve these goals, the current work addresses two crucial issues. In its first aim, the work identifies self-disclosure strategies that enable individuals to effectively convey their experiences to listeners. Surprisingly, there has been limited research on how people help listeners understand them. The challenge lies in accurately measuring shared understanding without disrupting listeners or relying solely on their subjective assessments. Neural synchrony, which measures the extent to which two brains process events similarly over time, has emerged as a mechanism that helps listeners comprehend the details of speakers' experiences. By observing how two brains link together (using neuroimaging techniques) from one moment to the next without interrupting the natural experience of communication, this study uncovers the linguistic (e.g., emotional, vivid, and reflective language) and nonverbal (e.g., vocal patterns, silent pauses, speech rate) elements of disclosures that promote successful communication. In its second aim, the current work seeks to discover how conversation partners develop a sense of shared meaning. It remains unknown whether neural synchrony enables listeners to move beyond a basic understanding of speakers’ experiences and gain deeper insight into their personality traits, motivations, and life stories. Thus, the current research measures how people develop shared interpretations of the nuanced information speakers seek to convey about themselves during self-disclosure to examine the extent to which neural synchrony helps listeners understand the deeper meaning of a speaker’s disclosure beyond just getting the facts straight. These findings contribute to an enhanced theoretical framework for how self-disclosure fosters shared understanding between people and help future scholars develop strategies for building social connection.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.