A first look of communication theory summary 2
Chapter 8: Social Penetration Theory
Irwin Altman & Dalmas Taylor
The social penetration process explains how relational closeness develops.
Personality structure: a multilayered onion
Altman and Taylor compared people to onions. Peel the outer skin from an onion, and you’ll find
another beneath it. Remove that layer and you’ll expose a third, and so on. This is likewise with
humans. Your outer layer is your public self and that is accessible to anyone who cares to look. your
inner core is your private domain, which is invisible to the world.
Closeness through self-disclosure
The main route to deep social penetration is through verbal self-disclosure. To get to someone’s
center, you must first cut through the outer layers. Altman and Taylor claimed that on the surface
level this kind of biographical information exchange takes place easily, perhaps at the first meeting.
But they pictured the layers of onion skin tougher and more tightly wrapped as the wedge nears the
center. In addition, once the wedge has penetrated deeply, it will have cut a passage through which
it can return again and again with little resistance. Future privacy will be difficult.
The depth and breadth of self-disclosure
The depth of penetration is the degree of intimacy. There are four ways to get close to someone:
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.
Whatever the reason, social penetration theory asserts a law of reciprocity.
3) Penetration is rapid at the start, but slows down quickly as the tightly wrapped inner layers
are reached. Researchers regard autobiographical memories as a quick path to stronger
bonds.
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. Your live can
be divided in categories. Someone can know one aspect of you in depth, but then there is no
breadth. Through intimacy is that someone knows you in breadth and depth.
Regulating closeness on the basis of rewards and costs
Altman and Taylor borrowed ideas from social exchange theory, developed by John Thibaut and
Harold Kelly. Investors choose where to put their money in the stock market. We choose where to
put our time in relationships. Whether finance or relationships, we want a good return for our
investment, so we do a cost-benefit analysis beforehand. Both parties will do this. If the perceived
mutual benefits outweigh the costs of greater vulnerability, the process of social penetration will
proceed. There are three key components of this mental calculation:
1) Relational outcome: Rewards minus costs. Thibaut and Kelly suggested that people try to
predict the outcome of an interaction before it takes place. the minimax principal claims that
people seek to maximize their benefits and minimize their costs. Social exchange theorists
assume that we can accurately gauge the payoffs of a variety of interactions and that we
have the good sense to choose the action that will provide the best result. What mattered to
Altman and Taylor is that we decide to open up with another person using the perceived
benefit-minus-cost outcome. Early in a relationship, we tend to see physical appearance,
similar backgrounds, and mutual agreement as benefits. Disagreements and deviance from
the norm are negatives. Deeper friendships thrive on common values and spoken
appreciation, and we can even enjoy surface diversity.
, 2) Gauging relational satisfaction – the comparison level (CL). A relational result has meaning
only when we contrast it with other real or imagined possibilities. Social exchange theory
offers two standards of comparison that we use to evaluate our interpersonal outcomes. 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. A
person’s comparison level is the threshold above which an outcome seems attractive. To a
big extent, our relational history establishes our CLs for friendship, romance, and family ties.
Sequence plays a large part in evaluating a relationship. The results 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.
3) Gauging relational stability – the comparison level of alternatives (CLalt). Thibaut and Kelley
suggested that there is a second standard by which we evaluate the outcomes we receive.
They called it the comparison level of alternatives (CLalt). CLalt represents your evaluation of
other relational options at the moment. We would ask ourselves: would my relational
payoffs, be better with another person? Your CLalt is your best available alternative to a
friendship with your current friend. If CLalt is less than current outcomes, our current
friendship will be stable. But if more attractive friendship possibilities become available, our
current friendship will become more instable. 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. Epicurus,
a Greek philosopher who wrote a few years after Aristotle’s death defined the good life as getting as
much pleasure as possible. Epicurus actually emphasized the passive pleasures of friendship and
good digestion, and above all, the absence of pain. A few other philosophers have echoed the
Epicurean call for selfish concern, like Hobbes, Smith, Nietzsche and Rand.
Most ethical and religious thinkers denounce the selfishness of egoism as morally repugnant.
Dialectics and the environment
But Altman later had second thoughts about his basic assumption that openness is the predominant
quality of relationship development. He began to speculate that the desire for privacy may
counteract what he first thought was a unidirectional quest for intimacy. He now proposes a
dialectical model. He believes that the tension between openness and closedness results in cycles of
disclosure or withdrawal. Altman also identifies the environment as a factor in social penetration.
Sometimes the environment guides our decision to disclosure. Other times we actively manipulate
our environment to meet our privacy and disclosure goals. Through research on students Altman
demonstrates the importance of both psychological and territorial boundaries in the process of social
penetration.
Critique: pulling back from social penetration
The theory is relatively simple, because of the onion model. But some scholars find the theory too
simple. Petronio thinks it’s too simplistic to equate self-disclosure with relational closeness. Other
personal relationship scholars are uncomfortable with Altman and Taylor’s wholesale use of a
reward-cost analysis to explain the differential drive for penetration.
, 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
Sandra Petronio
Sandra 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 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.
Privacy turbulence, the third part of the privacy management system, comes into play when private
information doesn’t go the way we expect. 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.
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
information. The first principle of communication privacy management theory is clear: we see it as
ours; we believe it belongs to us. Our conviction is so strong that Petronio defines privacy as “the
feeling one has the right to own private information.”
Ownership conveys rights as well as obligations. Privacy bolsters our sense of autonomy and makes
us feel less vulnerable. That’s the upside. But Petronio also suggests that ownership of private
information can be a liability. She claims that when we are privy to something others don’t know, we
understand we are responsible for that information and will be held accountable for how we handle
it. That’s why we seek to control who else gets to know.
