Ethical and moral decision making has been the topic of contentious academic debate for some time. According to a study, social penetration theory was found to be one of the most applicable communication theories to explain the way people make their decisions based on their ethical and moral compass. The theory shows strong correlation between self disclosure and reinforcement patterns, which are shown to have a big impact on one's perceived ethical code. This can be applied to a number of fields including communications, psychology, ethics, philosophy and sociology.