A First Look at Communication Theory
Chapter 8: Social Penetration Theory
of Irwin Altman & Dalmas Taylor
Social penetration: The process of developing deeper intimacy with another person through mutual
self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability.
PERSONALITY STRUCTURE: A MULTILAYERED ONION
Altman and Taylor compared people to onions. It’s a depiction of the multilayered structure of
personality.
Personality structure: Onion-like layers of beliefs and feelings about self, others, and the world;
deeper layers are more vulnerable, protected, and central to self-image.
The outer layer is your public self that’s accessible to anyone who cares to look. Beneath the surface,
you’ll discover the semiprivate attitudes that you reveal only to some people. The inner core is made
up of your values, self-concept, unresolved conflicts, and deeply felt emotions. This is your unique
private domain, which is invisible to the world but has a significant impact on the areas of his life that
are closer to the surface.
CLOSENESS THROUGH SELF-DISCLOSURE
Nonverbal paths to closeness include mock roughhousing, eye contact, and smiling. But the main
route to deep social penetration is through verbal self-disclosure.
Self-disclosure: The voluntary sharing of personal history, preferences, attitudes, feelings, values,
secrets, etc., with another person; transparency.
The depth of penetration represents the degree of personal disclosure. To get to the center, the
wedge must first cut through the outer layers.
THE DEPTH AND BREADTH OF SELF-DISCLOSURE
The depth of penetration is the degree of intimacy.
Depth of penetration: The degree of disclosure in a specific area of an individual’s life.
1. Peripheral items are exchanged sooner and more frequently than private information.
2. Self-disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stages of relationship development.
Law of reciprocity: A paced and orderly process in which openness in one person leads to
openness in the other; “You tell me your dream; I’ll tell you mine.”
3. Penetration is rapid at the start, but slows down quickly as the tightly wrapped inner layers
are reached.
4. Depenetration is a gradual process of layer-by-layer withdrawal.
While depth is crucial to the process of social penetration, breadth is equally important.
Breadth of penetration: The range of areas in an individual’s life over which disclosure takes place.
REGULATING CLOSENESS ON THE BASIS OF REWARDS AND COSTS
Social exchange: Relationship behavior and status regulated by both parties’ evaluations of
perceived rewards and costs of interaction with each other.
If the perceived mutual benefits outweigh the costs of greater vulnerability, the process of social
penetration will proceed.
,Relational Outcome: Rewards Minus Costs
Thibaut and Kelley suggested that people try to predict the outcome of an interaction before it takes
place.
Outcome: The perceived rewards minus the costs of interpersonal interaction.
Minimax principle of human behavior: People seek to maximize their benefits and minimize their
costs.
Gauging Relational Satisfaction—The Comparison Level (CL)
The first point of reference deals with relative satisfaction—how happy or sad an interpersonal
outcome makes a participant feel. Thibaut and Kelley called this the comparison level.
Comparison level (CL): The threshold above which an interpersonal outcome seems attractive; a
standard for relational satisfaction.
To a big extent, our relational history establishes our CLs for friendship, romance, and family ties. We
judge the value of a relationship by comparing it to the baseline of past experience.
Sequence plays a large part in evaluating a relationship. The result from each interaction is stored in
the individual’s memory. Experiences that take place early in a relationship can have a huge impact
because they make up a large proportion of the total relational history. Trends are also important.
Gauging Relational Stability—The Comparison Level of Alternatives (CLalt)
Comparison level of alternatives (CLalt): The best outcome available in other relationships; a
standard for relational stability.
CL is your overall standard for a specific type of relationship, and it remains fairly stable over time. In
contrast, CLalt represents your evaluation of other relational options at the moment. Taken together,
CL and CLalt explain why some people remain in relationships that aren’t satisfying.
The relative values of outcome, CL, and CLalt go a long way in determining whether a person is
willing to become vulnerable in order to have a deeper relationship. The optimum situation is when
both parties find Outcome > CLalt > CL.
ETHICAL REFLECTION: EPICURUS’ ETHICAL EGOISM
The minimax principle that undergirds social exchange theory—and therefore social penetration
theory as well—is also referred to as psychological egoism. The term reflects many social scientists’
conviction that all of us are motivated by self-interest. Unlike most social scientists who limit their
study to what is rather than what ought to be, ethical egoists claim we should act selfishly.
Ethical egoism: The belief that individuals should live their lives so as to maximize their own pleasure
and minimize their own pain.
DIALECTICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Interpersonal closeness proceeds in a gradual and orderly fashion from superficial to intimate levels
of exchange, motivated by current and projected future outcomes. Lasting intimacy requires
continual and mutual vulnerability through breadth and depth of self-disclosure.
Dialectical model: The assumption that people want both privacy and intimacy in their social
relationships; they experience a tension between disclosure and withdrawal.
Altman also identifies the environment as a factor in social penetration. Sometimes the environment
guides our decision to disclose.
Territoriality: The tendency to claim a physical location or object as our own.
This need shows that the onion of social penetration includes both our mind and our physical space.
, CRITIQUE: PULLING BACK FROM SOCIAL PENETRATION
The onion is a relatively simple picture of the messy process of self-disclosure. But some scholars
think social penetration theory is too simple. Although the theory’s account may be so simple that it
doesn’t explain all the data, it has nevertheless stood the test of time. For scholars, it provides
testable hypotheses that can be vetted through quantitative research. To students, it gives practical
advice that helps predict the future course of relationship development. Perhaps the reward of
simple, practical utility is worth the cost.
Chapter 12: Communication Privacy Management Theory
of Sandra Petronio
Petronio sees communication privacy management theory (CPM) as a description of a privacy
management system that contains three main parts. The first part of the system, privacy ownership,
contains our privacy boundaries that encompass information we have but others don’t know. Privacy
boundaries can range from thin and porous filters to thick, impenetrable barriers that shield deep,
dark secrets. Privacy control, the second part of the system, involves our decision to share private
information with another person. Petronio considers this the engine of privacy management.
Decisions to share information or relinquish some control also reshape the boundaries contained in
the privacy ownership part of the system. Privacy turbulence, the third part of the privacy
management system, comes into play when managing private information doesn’t go the way we
expect.
Privacy boundaries: A metaphor to show how people think of the borders between private and
public information.
The decisions you make in the aftermath of the breach are directed at reducing turbulence. Having a
mental image of these three parts of the privacy management system is helpful in understanding the
five core principles of Petronio’s CPM. The first four principles deal with issues of privacy ownership
and control; the fifth involves privacy turbulence—the turmoil that erupts when rules are broken.
The principles are:
1. People believe they own and have a right to control their private information.
2. People control their private information through the use of personal privacy rules.
3. When others are told or discover a person’s private information, they become co-owners of that
information.
4. Co-owners of private information need to negotiate mutually agreeable privacy rules about telling
others.
5. When co-owners of private information don’t effectively negotiate and follow mutually held
privacy rules, boundary turbulence is the likely result.
1. OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF PRIVATE INFORMATION
People believe they own and have a right to control their private information.
Private information: The content of potential disclosures; information that can be owned.
Instead of talking about self-disclosure, as many relational theorists do, Petronio refers to the
disclosure of private information. There are four reasons she favors this term. In the first place, a lot
of the private information we tell others isn’t about ourselves. Another reason she avoids the self-
disclosure label is that it’s usually associated with interpersonal intimacy. A third reason Petronio
chooses to talk about the disclosure of private information is that the phrase has a neutral
connotation, as opposed to self-disclosure, which has a positive feel. Finally, while the term self-
disclosure focuses on the unilateral act of the discloser, Petronio’s preferred description directs
attention to the content of what’s said and how the confidant handles this now not-so-private
