The Social Penetration Theory

1548 Words7 Pages
The Social Penetration Theory People often times fail to realize how their communication can greatly impact their social interactions as well as aid in the formation of strong intimate relationships they may hold with their friends or even their significant other. We use communication in many forms, whether verbal or non-verbal to gain a better understanding of one another and to reduce our uncertainty towards each other. By allowing ourselves to take part in the communication process, we therefore are able to disclose and exchange information which in turn aids in forming an intimate relationship better known as the social penetration theory. The theorists Altman and Taylor define the social penetration theory as something that…show more content…
Take for example when you meet a new person for the very first time. At first you may be a little shy and hesitant to share information with someone you have just met, but once you start to get to know him or her more, you may feel more comfortable interacting with them. It takes a lot of time and lots of interaction with a person for you to slowly start to be able to put your walls down and allow yourself to trust that person and in turn form a connection with them on a more intimate and personal level. When I met my best friend in middle school for the first time, I had no clue who she was. She had just moved to Houston from Michigan and was a very outgoing and outspoken person. Me being the total opposite, as I was shy and sort of reserved – it usually times me time to open up to a person and be “myself” around people – made things a little harder. Because she was outgoing, it was easy for her to make friends and before I knew it, she became really good friends with a lot of my close friends. As the semester progressed we would see each other more often considering that we had a lot of mutual friends, and we would occasionally hold conversations with each other but it was typically on a more cultural level, sharing for the most part more general information with each other, mostly just small talk. As more time progressed and we got the opportunity to hang out more, we learned that we actually had a lot of similarities and before we
Open Document