Social Penetration Theory On Our Private Life

Self-disclosure is an important part of any close relationship. Without sharing our own fears and weaknesses, we can

The Social Penetration Theory is an explanation by two communication theorists, Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor. This theory attempts to explain how relational closeness develops. Since we all have hundreds of different relationships, with thousands of different people during our lifetime, it is an important theory to study and understand.

“People can take their time when posting information about themselves, carefully selecting what aspects they would like to emphasize (Gonzales 80).” By controlling what information and self-attributes to share with the online world, an individual may present an idealized version of self that would not align with societal perceptions in the face-to-face interactions. Furthermore, Gonzales notes that recent research in computer-mediated communications suggests that online self-presentations can alter self-perceptions (80). As Orenstein says, “I tweet, therefore I am.” The online presentations of self can become the reality, or idealized reality, of the

In a world filled with social media the line between public and private hardly exists. People these days publish anything and everything on line, regardless of how private it should be. Of course, there are people who don’t feel the need to advertise their every thought, but most do. Society is so desensitized to knowing everyone’s business that they feel it’s okay to publish what used to be thought of as

How is the audience to know if these are common problems or infrequently occurring outliers? She states that “while privacy settings allow users to restrict who may view their profiles and group affiliations, such settings are rarely enabled by the user.” What does the word “rarely” mean? This certainly does not fit the STAR criteria of sufficiency, typicality, accuracy, and relevance. While persuasive to a select audience, Fleming narrowly focuses her argument and only gives a one-sided narrative of the negative effects of social networks. Dana Fleming’s Pathos, or emotional appeal, is great, but her credibility (Ethos) is hurt by only considering one side of the debate.

The realizations I have on self disclosure is that, it is one way of letting my self go. Letting another human being know my inner most feelings and my fears. I am a very private person and I tend to not say much about myself unless I know the person very well. I tend to not to like people who disclose a lot of information to me mainly if we do not have a very close relationship, because to me that means I also have to let them in on some of my inner most feelings. I feel like even if they are a lot of advantages to self-

Social Penetration theory attempts to explain the differences in communication in relation to the depth of interpersonal relationships. “Irwin Altman and Dallas Taylor, the theory states that relationships begin and deepen through self-disclosure. In the beginning, people establish

Mehdizadeh sets up a group of 18 to 25 years old university students hypothesizing that those “with high narcissism scores can be correlated with a greater amount of Facebook activity… use more self-promoting content.” She also hypothesizes that males will use “descriptive self-promotion”, females will

In other words Social Penetration Theory is a process in which a person reveals themselves to another person. The theory is that people reveal themselves in layers of bits of information. Disclosing things such as; layer one- age, job, hometown; layer two- musical interest, hobbies, religion; layer three- fears, values, self-esteem. The speed at which people do this depends on a variety of factors including your attachment style (pg. 61). The attachment test tells me I'm dismissive, I agree. I am often told I have no emotions. It doesn't bother me to hear that because it is somewhat true. I am not the type to be very forward or lay all my cards on the table. People have to pull off a lot of layers to get to know the real me. I put up a guard because I was hurt once. In the time it took to get over it I believe I lost all feelings towards emotional relationships. I do have feelings I'm just not willing to open up to people and let them see. I hardly ever cry (ever) and if I do

Through Social Penetration theory, Taylor and I started out as strangers which lated turned in becoming my best friend. Taylor and I’s relationship developed through the depth and breadth of self-disclosure. The four observations of breadth and depth are peripheral, self-disclosure, penetration and depenetration. The first observation is peripheral items are exchanged sooner and more frequently than private information. As Taylor and I first started to to develop our friendship, we played it safe by making small talk. Taylor

Individuals have different levels of disclosure and when combined with another individual’s disclosure level can have positive or negative outcomes. The decision to communicate can also cause uncertainty within relationships. Prior research was conducted to try and measure what exactly causes the uncertainty and negative results to show up in a relationship. Intimacy, security, problematic events, and irritations are all different elements that can be stronger or weaker in the relationship based on the disclosure (Theiss and Solomon 2006).

In recent years, social penetration theory has been the focus of many online studies,and has been applied to, or adapted, in the context of online relationship studies, such as sexual self-disclosure, online friendships, and online social networks. (Tang & Wang, 2012) The social penetration theory as Joseph DeVito writes in The Interpersonal Communication Book is a theory not of why relationships develop but of what happens when they do develop (DeVito, 2016, p. 237). While there are a few concepts that are encompassed in the definition of social penetration theory, there are two prominent parts and they are, breadth and depth. The breadth of a relationship refers to the amount of topics you and your partner talk about, and depth refers to the degree to which you penetrate the inner personality—the core—of the other individual (DeVito, 2016). In simpler terms, “how do you let people in,” and “how much and how in depth do you go into a topic?” Let it be known, however, that there is such thing as a withdrawal between the amount of breadth and depth communicated between individuals in a relationship. Such a concept is known as depenetration. While there will be a fairly low amount of attention paid to this concept, it’s important to understand that this contrast of social penetration exists.

The layers of self-disclosure can be identified as layers of an onion. Self-disclosure can be referred to as layers of an onion because in the relationship you peel back a layer at a time. The outer layer of the onion is only superficial communication that is not as intimate and can be seen by any of the public. This communication can include height, weight, where someone works or goes to school, etc. The inner layer of the onion includes more personal communication that is not always seen by the public. This inner layer can include communication that involves a persons goals, values, and beliefs. In a study done in 2012, bloggers tended to stick to the outer layers of the onion when discussing topics in their blogs (Tang). The social penetration theory and social media’s impact on the theory will be expanded upon more later on in the paper.

According to psychologist John Suler and his idea of “The Online Disinhibition Effect”, some people, while online, self-disclose or act differently than they would

Self-disclosure is the voluntary sharing of personal history, preferences, attitudes, feelings, values, secrets, etc. with another person (Griffin, p. 97). As stated in the introduction Altman and Taylor look at relationships as an “onions.” The different layers are representative of different feelings of a person. When