Developing Trusting Relationships Through Communication

In this paper, we analyze the formation of trusting relationships among people through communication. To foster trusting relationships, individuals must disclose private and personal information. However, disclosing such information has both costs and benefits; therefore, both parties must decide on the optimal level of self-disclosure based on a variety of factors, such as the current level of intimacy and the benefits of deepening this intimacy. We constructed an economics model that explains Altman and Taylor (1973)’s social penetration theory with a focus on one of its most important results: “reciprocal self-disclosure” increases during the initial stages of intimacy and then declines after a certain level of intimacy has been reached.