Abstract: Following Fei’s Differential Pattern of interpersonal closeness, closeness is defined as the psychological distance from the target person to the self. There are two types of closeness. Besides explicit closeness, which can be measured through introspection, a structure of “implicit closeness” is also presented by social psychologists to tap into the “auto-activated”, or “out of consciousness” side of closeness. Its theoretical significance notwithstanding, the Differential Pattern has rarely been subject to empirical study. The results of the few studies, though lending some support to the structure, need to be replicated to establish their validity. Furthermore, to our knowledge, there is no previous research that examined implicit and explicit blood relationship, romantic relationship and friendship simultaneously.
The current study was designed to fill in this gap. In this study, the differences and associations between explicit and implicit closeness of the most intimate family member (blood relationship), lover (romantic relationship) and the most intimate friend (friendship) were investigated. Explicit closeness was measured by direct ordering and the Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) scale, while implicit closeness was measured by Implicit Association Test (IAT). It was within-subjects designed, with all the participants finishing the implicit and explicit measures of all three relationships. In addition to the two explicit measures, each participant also finished seven IATs, three of which compared the self to the three target figures, the other three compared the three target figures to a general other, and the last one compared self to a general other.
The results indicated that a) There were significant differences between explicit closeness across the three targets. Specifically, family members were the closest, followed by romantic partner, and friend came the last. However, no differences existed in their implicit closeness; b) No significant correlation was found between explicit and implicit closeness; c) Gender differences were not significant in explicit measures. For implicit measures, males felt closer to lovers than females.
A rough Differential Pattern can be drawn from this study. The differences found between implicit and explicit measures might arise from the different nature of the cognitive underpinnings of the two types of closeness. These findings suggest potential usefulness of IAT as indirect measure of closeness. Future research should select more points from the continuum of closeness, such as general family member, classmates, and acquaintances in order to examine more thoroughly the Differential Pattern

Key words: close relationships, explicit measure, implicit measure