Social Penetration Theory

We all are bound to have some kind of relationship with someone. People become strangers, acquaintances, or friends depending on their needs and situations. Why do some relationships progress quickly, whereas others move very slowly to reach a level of intimacy? These questions motivated Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor to propose their social penetration theory (SPT) in the early 1970s. Since then it has been adapted by many theorists in communication studies and has played a prominent role in the understanding of developing relationships. SPT has gone through a fair amount of theoretical development over the years. Originally, it highlighted the development, maintenance, and deterioration of social relationships in a linear fashion, from less intimacy to greater intimacy, to disengagement. Later, the theory was revised to reflect a more cyclical process that depicted penetration as a back-and-forth process in which the tension between public and private always needed to be managed. This entry reviews the basic stages of relationship development and the elaborations on and critiques of the theory.

The theory identifies a series of stages through which relationships develop:

• Orientation stage. In this stage, people start with short, simple, and usually inconsequential talk.
• Exploratory-affective stage. Individuals now start to reveal themselves, expressing personal attitudes about public topics such as government and education. This is the stage of casual friendship, and many relationships do not go beyond this stage.
• Affective stage. At this stage, people start to talk about private and personal matters. Criticism and arguments may also arise. There may be intimate touching and hugging at this stage.
• Stable stage. The relationship now reaches a level where personal things are shared, and one can predict the emotional reactions of the other person.
• Depenetration. When the relationship starts to break down and costs exceed benefits, there is a withdrawal of disclosure that leads to termination of the relationship.

Altman and Taylor felt that explaining disclosure in terms of traits within a relationship was unrealistic and that it was necessary to consider self-disclosure in the context of specific relationships and settings. SPT links self-disclosure to relational interaction by relying on self-disclosure as a primary mechanism for creating varying degrees of intimacy within relationships. They argued that self-disclosure is particularly important at the initial stages of a relationship as partners search for similarities and compatibilities. At this stage of a relationship, participants need to match breadth and depth of self-disclosure to a sense of mutual trustworthiness necessary for the relationship to progress into more intimate stages. There is a general norm of reciprocity in self-disclosure processes—that is, when one person reveals something about himself or herself, the other person will tend to reply with similar information.

Altman and Taylor compared people to a multi-layered onion. They believe each opinion, belief, prejudice, and feeling is layered around and within the individual. As people get to know each other, the layers get open to reveal the core of the person. These layers have both breadth and depth. Breadth is the variety of topics that have been incorporated into individuals' lives. Depth is the amount of information available on each topic. On the outermost shell are highly visible levels of information such as dress and speech. Inside are increasingly private details about the lives, feelings, and thoughts of the participants. As the relationship develops, the partners share more aspects of the self, providing [Page 912]breadth as well as depth, through an exchange of information, feelings, and activities. Thus, relationships are sustained when they are relatively rewarding and discontinued when they are relatively costly.

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