Write an outline of this presentation below Slide 1: What is Social Penetration Theory? Book definition: The
Question:
Write an outline of this presentation below
Slide 1: What is Social Penetration Theory?
- Book definition: "The process of developing deeper intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability.
- Identifies the process of increasing the breadth within a relationship (which is self-disclosure), and the depth of a relationship (which is intimacy).
- Whenever two or more people start sharing information about one another, this is when Social Penetration takes place.
Slide 2: Background Information
- Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor first suggested this theory in 1973 as a way to explain how relationships evolve and how self-disclosure affects relationship formation and development.
- They did so in an effort to shed light on these topics
- Baack, D., Fogliasso, C., & Harris, J. (2000) explore that the idea deals with the manner in which relationships grow and evolve. It describes how communication improves the connection of two or more people. The idea says that intimacy (penetration) occurs if communication starts at relatively shallow non-intimate levels and progresses in steady and orderly manner to deeper more personal ones.
- Altman and Taylor proposed a Social Penetration process that explains how relational closeness develops.
- Altman and Taylor compared us humans to onions.
- This onion metaphor basically means that a person's personality is multilayered.
- This goes for both romantic relationships and friendships. You have to peel pack their layers to see who they truly are.
Slide 3: Getting to know Altman and Taylor
- Irwin Altman was born July 16, 1930. ( 92 years old)
- Altman earned his B.A from New York University in 1951.
- He then earned his M.A degree from the University of Maryland in 1954.
- Lastly, in 1957 he earned his Ph.D from the University of Maryland.
- Currently, he is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Utah.
- Dalmas Taylor was born september 3, 1933.
- Passed away at just 64 years old.
- Was the vice president of academic affairs at Lincoln university in pennsylvania.
- Prior to his passing and gaining status as the vice president of academic affairs, he was a provost and a professor of psychology at Lincoln University.
Slide 4: Onion Model (includes onion model picture)
- The onion model portrays a set of different stages a person has to go through to get to know someone.
- Orientation stage ~ Introductory stage
- Exploratory stage ~ casual relationship
- Affective stage ~ personality starts to emerge
- Stable stage ~ Most intimate and honest stage
Slide 5: A Deeper look at the stages of Self-Disclosure
- Orientation stage: Aka "first impression stage" individuals become familiar with each other by watching mannerisms and by talking about mom-intimate information about themselves.
- Exploratory affective stage: Individuals start to have more conversation about their opinions on political matters. Personal information is withheld. This stage tends to make relationships develop into a casual friendship. A lot of relationships tend to stay at this level of friendship.
- Affective stage: At this stage, people start to disclose personal information. Individuals began to create "inside jokes" and their true ways of speaking start to come out. Both people involved also begin to feel comfortable with critiquing each other and even engaging in arguments with each other. Most romantic relationships start at this stage.
- Stable stage: This is a stage where both individuals know a lot about each other. The disclosure between the two is very open and honest. They know each other so well that they can even began to predict how the other person may react to certain things and situations.
Please watch this video!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z0the5_VFk
Slide 6: A Multilayered Onion
- The outer layer represents your public self that is accessible to anyone who cares to see you.
- Example: In the picture of the woman to the right. What can you tell about her from just looking at her?
- As time moves on and you both peel the layers of the "onion" She might reveal that she actually likes the color green and loves sushi. Things that you can't tell from just looking at her.
Slide 7: A Multilayered Onion Continued
- The inner core of an individual is made up of their values, self concept, unresolved conflicts, and deeply felt emotions.
- These are all things that we wouldn't post to the internet because they are every personal to us.
- These attributes about us appear invisible to the world, but they are a very big part in our own lives and they do deeply impact the areas closer to our surface layer.
- Sometimes not even the people close to us know these kind of things about us. This is because the inner core is so important to us, and we don't want to share some of the things inside of our inner core with others.
Slide 8: Structure of Self-Disclosure
- Forms of nonverbal paths to closeness consist of
- Eye contact
- Smiling
- Casual friendliness (waving)
- The main way to evolve a relationship is through verbal self disclosure
Altman and Taylor claim that the surface level is where basic information being exchanged takes place. Usually at the place where the meeting first takes place.
Slide 9: The depth of Social Penetration
- The degree of disclosure in a specific area of an individual's life.
- In the beginning private information is not very much shared. Arthur VanLear from the University of Connecticut examined the conversations between developing relationships and discovered that 14 percent of talk revealed nothing about the speaker, 65 percent dwelled on public items, 19 percent shared semi-private information, and 2 percent disclosed intimate information.
- Self-disclosure feels the need to be reciprocal in the early stages. This theory predicts that in new acquaintances each individual involved will have shared equal levels of openness. This theory does not explain why, but Altman and Taylor believe that it is because we feel the need to reciprocate self-disclosure if someone has opened up to us. If we don't show self-disclosure in return it could leave us feeling uneasy. This kind of interactions allow us to unknowingly share deeper levels of ourselves to others.
- Social penetration theory asserts a law of reciprocity.
Please watch this video!!!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiipPvejMb6AhWaFlkFHf-uAVsQuAJ6BAgPEAo&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DLzDBLj1ZdP8&usg=AOvVaw2z7xqUC-NKA7Qzn9JdNlqp (1:58)
Slide 10: The depth of Social Penetration Continued
- Penetration tends to be very quick in the beginning, but slows down as the inner core levels are approached.
- The social norms of revealing too much information about yourself too early
- Most relationships stall before a stable exchange is established. For this reason relationships tend to fade very easily after a slight strain or separation.
- Becoming comfortable at sharing positive and negative reactions is rare, but when it is achieved, the relationship becomes important to everyone involved.
- The rate at which we get closer to the opposite person depends highly on how we present our disclosure.
4. Depenetration is a process of layer-by-layer withdrawal.
- A close relationship will start to deteriorate if they begin to close off levels of their lives that they have previously disclosed.
- Relational retreat is taking back to information that was already exchanged in the building of a relationship.
Slide 11: The depth of Social Penetration Continued
- Denise Beike, Nicole Brandon, and Holly Cole are three psychologists from the University of Arkansas. They summarized eight studies that would show how powerful sharing autobiographical memories would be on relationships.
- The studies suggest that if you tell a story about something personal in your life, it would hold a lot more weight then if you just said it blankly.
- Telling a story allows the person you are talking to, to empathize with you and understand better rather than sharing neutral facts about your life.
- The researchers came to the conclusion that autobiographical memories are a quick path to stronger bonds.
Slide 12: There are four main factors that affect the rate of Social Penetration
- The need for self-disclosure: We all have a need to disclose personal information about ourselves to others. This need may be stronger or weaker depending on our personality type.
- The willingness to self-disclose: We may be more or less willing to share personal information depending on our comfort level and the trust we have in the other person.
- The ability to self-disclose: We may be more or less able to share personal information depending on our communication skills and the level of rapport we have with the other person.
- The opportunity to self-disclose: We may have more or less opportunity to share personal information depending on the time we have together and the type of relationship we have.
Slide 13: Scenarios of Social Penetration
Meghan and Justin both grew up in two different states with both very different backgrounds. The pair met online over video games, and just a four months later they begin to date. Justin wants to tell one of his very good friends, Jayden, about his new found romantic relationship with Megan. Justin appears to be hesitant of this idea because even though him and Jayden are really good friends, they have never discussed their personal relationships with each other outside of work before. Although Justin is afraid to admit these feelings, if he does find the courage to speak to Jayden about his personal life then next time there will already be a pathway with little resistance and hesitation for Justin and Jayden to talk about these kind of topics in the future.
Slide 14: Let's play kahoot!
Slide 15: Critique
- This scientific theory makes assumptions about relationship development based on levels of self disclosure. This theory support the idea that for a relationship to develop, both people have to self-disclose. When judging this theory you may think you're able to make predictions depending on level of self-disclosure, but that's not always the truth.
- This theory makes the statement that if self-disclosure is high, then the relationship will develop. The "if and then" statement is what makes this a scientific theory. In response to you self-disclosing, the person you're self-disclosing to has free-will and decide if they want to self-disclose make to you.
Slide 16: Resources
(2001)Social Penetration Theory. Retrieved from
https://www.uky.edu/~drlane/capstone/interpersonal/socpen.html
Jams, Emmanuel, & James, M. (2012, September 20). Social penetration theory. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.communicationstudies.com/communication-theories/social-penetration-theory
Altman, I., & Taylor, D., (1973). Social Penetration: The Development of Interpersonal Relationships. NewYork: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Baack, D., Fogliasso, C., & Harris, J. (2000). The personal impact of ethical decision: A social penetration theory. Journal of Business Ethics, 24(1), 39-49.
Griffin, E., Ledbetter, A., & Sparks, G. (2019). A first look at communication theory (10th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Business Forecasting with Forecast X
ISBN: 978-0073373645
6th edition
Authors: Holton wilson, barry keating, john solutions inc