Social Penetration Theory: The Graduate

Daniel Holland

Comm3300

Dr. Long.

Social Penetration Theory and, The Graduate

Mr. Braddock: What's the matter? The guests are all downstairs, Ben, waiting to see you.
Benjamin: Look, Dad, could you explain to them that I have to be alone for a while?
Mr. Braddock: These are all our good friends, Ben. Most of them have known you since, well, practically since you were born. What is it, Ben?
Benjamin: I'm just...
Mr. Braddock: Worried?                                      
Benjamin: Well...
Mr. Braddock: About what?
Benjamin: I guess about my future.
Mr. Braddock: What about it?
Benjamin: I don't know... I want it to be...
Mr. Braddock: To be what?
Benjamin: [looks at his father] ... Different.

This is an excerpt from one of the first scenes in The Graduate a 1967 American comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols, cinematography by Robert Surtees and starring Dustin Hoffman(as Ben Braddock) Among the cast are actors Anne Bancroft (as Mrs. Robinson) and Katharine Ross (as Elaine). I feel that this scene is a key example of one of  the movies recurring themes, Isolation, and how that relates to communication.

Social Penetration is the process of developing deeper intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability. I look at Benjamin in the beginning of this film, just back from college, crowded by people at his graduation party, and yet, it is clear that he feels isolated and alone. I wonder how the situation at the party would be different if he would simply communicate differently. I wonder how the situation at the house would look if he used the process of Social Penetration. I wounder how all of Benjamins relationships would have changed.  

Psychogists, Irwin Altman, and Dalmas Taylor, might have the answer to Benjamins problem through a social penetration process that explains how relational closeness develops. “They proposed that closeness occurs through a gradual process of self-disclosure, and closeness develops if the participants proceed in a gradual and orderly fashion from superficial to intimate levels of exchange as a function of both immediate and forecast outcomes. This psychological theory, as with many others, is applied in the context of interpersonal relationships such as communications.

Self-disclosure is the act of revealing more about ourselves, on both a conscious and an unconscious level. Altman and Taylor believe that only through opening one's self to the main route to social penetration - self-disclosure - by becoming vulnerable to another person can a close relationship develop. Vulnerability can be expressed in a variety of ways, including the giving of anything which is considered to be a personal possession.”1

According to Altman and Taylor, Benjamin feels alone because he is only exposing the bare minimum of himself. Altman and Taylor state, “Self-disclosure is referred to in terms of breadth and depth, the latter of which is described in units of layers. This analogy is used to describe the multilayer nature of personality. When one peels the outer skin from an onion, another skin is uncovered. When the second layer is removed, a third is exposed, and so forth.”1

Altman and Taylor compare people, their emotions, and self-image to an onion. Like an onion people have multiple layers. The outer layers in this analogy, which is accessible to anyone who wants to look, are the more superficial layers, containing the public self. “The public self revels things like preferences in clothes, food, and music”2. As you move inward, more vulnerable aspects of a person start to become exposed. Aspects like fears, fantasies, and goals. Until you reach the core of the onion analogy, ones concept of self. Griffin says this about the inner core, “The inner core is the unique private domain of individuals, which, although invisible to the rest of the world, has a profound impact on the areas of life which lie closer to the surface. The amount revealed can vary according to culture. ^2”

            There are 4 important stages to social penetration.

1. Orientation stage. Here, we play safe with small talk and simple, harmless clichés like ‘Life’s like that’, following standards of social desirability and norms of appropriateness.

2. Exploratory affective stage. We now start to reveal ourselves, expressing personal attitudes about moderate topics such as government and education. This may not be the whole truth as we are not yet comfortable to lay ourselves bare. We are still feeling our way forward. This is the stage of casual friendship, and many relationships do not go past this stage.

3. Affective stage. Now we start to talk about private and personal matters. We may use personal idioms. Criticism and arguments may arise. In romantic-type relationships there may be intimate touching and kissing at this stage.

4. Stable stage. The relationship now reaches a plateau in which personal things are shared and each can predict the emotional reactions of the other person.3.

 There are 5 key points of self disclosure. These help move along social penetration.

• Peripheral items are exchanged more frequently and sooner than private information.
• Self-disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stages of relationship development.
• Penetration is rapid at the start but slows down quickly as the tightly wrapped inner layers are reached.
• De-penetration is a gradual process of layer-by-layer withdrawal.
• Social Penetration draws heavily from Thibaut and Kelley's Social Exchange Theory

However, as they say, it takes two to tango.  Benjamin, and his family, must give a little, they both have to allow themselves to become more transparent, more vulnerable. Thereby gaining more trust and insight into where the other is coming from, what the other is feeling. They will have become closer through self-disclosure.

Although Benjamin and his family may never fully disclose every aspect of their lives to one another, or even agree on every issue, they will at least be more able to understand one-another.

Work Cited.

1.                           Taylor, D. & Altman, I. (1987). Communication in interpersonal relationships: Social penetration processes. Interpersonal processes: New directions in communication research. p.257-277.

2.                           Griffin, E. (2006). A first look at communication theory. (6th edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.

3.                            Petronio, S. (2002). boundaries of privacy: Dialectics of disclosure. SUNY