Carnegie Mellon University

Eliciting Self-Disclosure


Title

Opener Scale

Studies

PMBC, PCS3

Copyright Information

The scale appears in its entirety in the source article (Miller et al., 1983).  For reprint permission requests and copyright inquiries, contact the publisher of the journal, the American Psychological Association: APA Permissions office.

Primary Reference

Miller, L., Archer, R., & Berg, J. (1983). Openers: Individuals who elicit intimate self-disclosure (abstract).  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(6), 1234-1244.

Purpose

To determine the extent to which participants elicit self-disclosure from others.

Description

Using a 5-point Likert scale, participants indicate the degree to which they agree with several self-referent statements describing their interactions with other persons.

Scaling

1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree

Number of Items

10

Psychometrics

In undergraduate students (Miller et al., 1983)

  • Internal consistency (n = 740):  Cronbach’s α = 0.79
  • Test-retest reliability (6 weeks; n = 65):  r = 0.69
  • Validity (n = 110 undergraduate women):  In a laboratory study, “high openers” (those scoring in the upper third on the Opener Scale) elicited greater self-disclosure from “low disclosure” interaction partners than did “low openers” (those scoring in the lower third on the Opener Scale).

In combined PMBC and PCS3 sample (n = 406)

Internal consistency, Cronbach’s α = 0.89

Scoring

Sum of all items

Variables

Openers Total Score