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

孤独对健康、生产力和幸福的威胁越来越大。为了应对其后果，找到人们与他人联系的方法变得越来越重要。人们建立社会联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理解说话者的经历，更深入地了解他们是谁，最终，更好的社会联系。然而，自我表露并不总能达到这一目标。这项工作探讨了自我表露何时以及如何促进社会联系，揭示了对话伙伴如何形成共同的理解。研究结果为未来干预制定沟通策略以促进社会联系奠定了基础。为了实现这些目标，目前的工作涉及两个关键问题。在其第一个目标中，这项工作确定了自我表露策略，使个人能够有效地向听众传达他们的经历。令人惊讶的是，关于人们如何帮助听众理解自己的研究一直很有限。挑战在于在不干扰听众或完全依赖他们的主观评估的情况下，准确地衡量共同的理解。神经同步性是衡量两个大脑在一段时间内处理事件的相似程度的一种机制，它已经成为一种帮助听众理解说话人经历细节的机制。通过观察两个大脑如何在不中断自然交流的情况下从一个时刻到下一个时刻连接在一起（使用神经成像技术），本研究揭示了促进成功交流的语言（例如，情感、生动和反思语言）和非语言（例如，声音模式、沉默停顿、语速）要素。在第二个目标中，目前的工作旨在发现对话伙伴如何发展共同意义感。神经同步是否能让听者超越对说话者经历的基本理解，从而更深入地了解他们的个性特征、动机和生活故事，目前还不得而知。因此，目前的研究测量了人们如何对说话者在自我表露中试图传达的关于自己的细微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表露的深层含义，而不仅仅是把事实弄清楚。这些发现有助于加强自我表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策略。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.