Rule 1
Lyndsay Rule
Professor Charles Wright
COMM 3083
23 August 2014
The Social Penetration Theory
“To know him is to love him,” can have much to do with the social penetration theory. The time
required to arrive at the state of knowing someone yield love. Sometimes you can only love what you
know, but when you meet someone new, it doesn’t take long for you to realize if you will like them or
not. But it’s so much more than that first impression. It takes time and effort to really get to know that
other person in your life. Whether it’s a close friend or a lover in your life, you tend to use the social
penetration theory. Social penetration is defined as “the process of developing deeper intimacy with
another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability” (Griffin 114). And
without that mutual self-disclosure it can be impossible for two people to really know the other.
Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor studied the social penetration theory and compared people to a
multilayer onion. This is known as personality structure, and consists of “onion-like layers of beliefs and
feelings about self, others, and the world. Deep layers are more vulnerable, protected, and central to
self-image” (Griffin 114). They are basically saying that the more you peel the onion and get to know the
other person, the deeper and deeper you get to the core of that onion. The outer layer of the onion is
your public self that others can see of you, and your inner core is made up of your values, self-concept,
and deeply felt emotions. A person’s secrets and unique private domain are in the very core of the
onion, but sometimes you choose to not let your closest of friends or significant other in on those
secrets of yours.
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A way we establish that closeness with a friend or a significant other is through self-disclosure.
“Self- disclosure can be defined as the intentional sharing of personal information about oneself.
Disclosure may include sharing both high-risk and low-risk information as well as personal experiences,
ideas and attitudes, feelings and values, past facts and life stories, and even future hopes, dreams,
ambitions, and goals. In sharing information about yourself, you make choices about what to share and
with whom to share it” (Doyle, T). Although self-disclosing to another person can be very scary, it’s the
main route to deep social penetration. Altman and Taylor suggest that there are two levels of selfdisclosure, the breadth of penetration and the depth of penetration. The first level of self-disclosure is
the breadth of penetration, which is “the range of areas in an individual’s life over which disclosure
takes place” (Griffin 117). Breadth without the depth describes the typical “Hello, how are you?” causal
relationship. A kind of relationship you might have with a classmate at school or with a co-worker at
work. A casual relationship might have great breadth but lack depth. While breadth goes around the
onion, depth goes straight thru to the inner core. The second level of self-disclosure is the depth of
penetration. The depth of penetration is the degree of intimacy and the degree of disclosure in a specific
area of a person’s life. My people tend to share depth of information later on in a relationship. This ties
into choosing what to say and what not to say in the beginning of a new relationship.
When it comes to self-disclosure there are both high and low risk of the information you choose
to tell another. Because with the nature of communication, once you say something you can’t take it
back. There can be costs and rewards for the things you choose to disclose. Psychologists John Thibaut
and Harold Kelley “suggested that people tend to predict the outcome of an interaction before it takes
place (Griffin 117). Sometimes without even knowing we all play scenarios in our heads and use the
result to decide what should be the next step. There can be benefits to new relationships, but there can
also be downsides to maintaining those new relationships as well. Sometimes people don’t want to put
in that extra work it takes to maintain a relationship, but who would we be if we couldn’t communicate
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with others and maintain those relationships? When you meet someone new and you are slowly starting
to peel that onion, you don’t want to run the risk of disclosing something to them that could be too
much for them to handle. This could lead to them wanting to run the other way. Or you could take that
chance of disclosing something to them that could lead to the both of you feeling more comfortable
around each other. You have to be careful of what you disclose with another and make sure that what is
said between the two of you stays between the two of you. Accordingly to the article “Rewards, Dangers
and Guidelines for Self-Disclosure,” when you self-disclose to someone you can have the rewards of selfknowledge by “getting to know yourself a little bit more each time you disclose.” Another reward you
can receive from self-disclosing is the ability to communicate better with people. According to Lisa
Michelle, author of the article “Rewards, Dangers and Guidelines for Self-Disclosure,” “the better you
know someone, the easier you will understand the meaning of their messages (Michelle, L.). The
dangers that come with self-disclosing could be the loss of a friendship, the rejection of a friend you
thought would have been supportive, or the chance of them holding what you told them against you. As
frightening as self-disclosure might be, it is the only way you can peel that onion and get beyond the
surface of a new relationship.
“Self-disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stages of relationship development” (Griffin
116). Which means that it takes two to get a relationship started, and it takes two to make a relationship
work. Which is common known as the law of reciprocity. Law of reciprocity is “a paced and orderly
process in which openness in one person leads to openness in the other” (Griffin 116). So basically it’s a
“you tell me your dreams and I’ll tell you mine,” sort of thing. The more you self-disclose to one person
the more comfortable they will feel self-disclosing to you. It can be a win-win for the both of you. You
can also self-disclose in certain gestures or non-verbal’s as well. According to Gary Korisko, “when
someone does something nice for you, you will have a deep-rooted psychological urge to do something
nice in return.” As humans, no matter how hard it might be to resist we will want to return a favor or
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self-disclose to someone that was willing to do the same for us. The social penetration theory has many
layers in itself and explains how closeness develops in ongoing relationships, and how without it no
relationship can have a chance to develop.
When it comes to the social penetration theory, every single person can have a way of relating it
to themselves and their own lives. When it comes to me, and gaining new relationships
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Works Cited
Doyle, Terrence. "Self-Disclosure: Social Penetration." Communication Unbound. Web. 22 April 2014.
Griffin, Em. A First Look at Communication Theory. 8th ed. New York: David Patterson, 2012. Print.
Korisko, Gary. "How The Law of Reciprocity Can Make or Break Your Business." N.p., n.d. Web. 22 April
2014.
Michelle, Lisa. "Rewards, Dangers and Guidelines for Self-Disclosure." 1 August 2009. Web. 22 April
2014.