Social Penetration Theory: Summary

The Social Penetration Theory or SPT was developed by Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor to explain how people get to know more about each other and how they become intimate with each other.

Basically, Altman and Taylor believe that people are like onions. We have our outer layers, which is the layer that people can see. It composes of our clothes, our skin color, our nationality, the color of our eyes-basically everything that can be seen by the naked eye.

Underneath this outer layer, there are more layers to a person's being. One layer would be our personality, our morals and beliefs etc. Then, we have our core which is the core of our very being. Our values, our deepest emotions and fears, and much much more.

Altman and Talor believes that we get close to a person by penetrating his layers. Furthermore, this penetrating can best be achieved by self-disclosure. Look at it like a wedge wedged in the onion. The wedge starts at the outermost layer. As you interact with a person, you learn things about him and the wedge cuts deeper into the onion. As the wedge cuts deeper into the onion, it penetrates more and more layers therefore disclosing more about the person. By doing this, one can draw closer to the person he is interacting with.

There are two aspects of self-disclosure. These are depth and breadth. If you have depth, then you penetrate deep into an area of a person's personality. Breadth on the other hand talks about how many aspects of the person do you know? For example, you may know about his love life, his family, his beliefs, and his dreams. All these constitutes different areas of his personality. Knowing more areas mean more breadth.


Regulating Closeness On the Basis of Rewards and Costs

Altman and Taylor maintains that we gauge how close we want to be with a person through perceived net of rewards minus costs. If both persons determine that the reward they will get from interacting more with the other person is greater than costs, then a friendship will develop between them.

Outcome

Altman and Taylor states that people try to predict the outcome of an interaction before engaging in it. If we see a favorable outcome, then we engage; if not then we withdraw. There are two reference points that help determine the outcome: Comparison Level and Comparison Level of Alternatives

Comparison Level

Comparison level talks about how we predict the outcome of an interaction on the basis of past relationships. For example, a person had very laid-back friends in high school. Then he was acquainted to his roommate in college who is very outgoing. With his relationship with his high school friends as a basis of comparison, he will not find a relationship with his roommate in college exciting.

Comparison Level of Alternatives

Comparison level of Alternatives talk about how we predict the outcome of an interaction on the basis of alternatives. For example, a conservative guy enters college. He needs to choose between pop music and rock music. Neither of the two is exactly appealing to him but he needs to choose. Therefore, we can guess that he will choose the more appealing one. The same principle applies in communication. If the same guy had to choose between hanging out with rocker dudes and hanging out with jazz lovers, then he would choose to hang out with the one that is more appealing to his conservative nature, therefore the jazz lovers.

This ends my summary of the SPT.