Social Penetration Theory.

Entering a new relationship with another person, would often lead an individual to go through number of stages or level of closeness and intimacy; to achieve from being stranger to familiarity. This process is known as 'Social Penetration Theory'. Ayla Abdullah (2011), noted that the theory is "an objective, interpretative theory from the socio-psychological tradition that aims to explain the process of relationship development." The relationship of Nick and Norah from a movie called "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist" will be use to demonstrate the theory of Social Penetration and how it is relatable in everyday life.

In social penetration, there is a concept of where two or more people interact with one another called, 'Interpersonal Communication'. This concept involves an interaction between a group of people and their environment; for example, an intreaction between two coworkers in an office environment. People tend to create the truth about each other, where by the actuality of the truth is only communicate in internal perception (Myers and Myers, 1992, pp. 7-8). 

Griffin (2009) supported Ayla's definition by stating that social penetration is "The process of developing intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability". The theory explains how one individual would get close or attach to another stranger by going through levels of intimacy and hence would be comfortable to one another as they go on with the flow of relationship development. In other words, the more we spent with each other, the deeper level of relationship development we will be at and the more personal issues are disclosed. To which is further supported by Altman and Taylor (1973), "Social penetration theory states that as relationships develop, communication moves from relatively shallow, non-intimate levels to deeper, more personal ones."

According to Ayla Abdullah's notes (2011), there are three essential levels of openning up personal discussions to another party; Personality as an onion, Self disclosure based on 'Breadth and Depth' and the Cost-benefit analysis. 

The personality as an onion or better known by Griffin (2009) as 'Personality Structure: Multilayered onion' is, "Onion-like layers of beliefs and feelings about self, others, and the world: deeper layers are more vulnerable, protected, and central to self-image." As mentioned before, the relationship of Nick and Norah will be use as an example in this post. Nick O'leary from New Jersey , is a heterosexual male bass player in an 'all gay band' called "The Jerks Off",  who just broke up with his girlfriend, Tris, and continued to be heartbroken in the beginning of the movie. He made Tris 'mix-CDs' of "breakup", which can be assume that he is trying to win her back. Then we have Norah, an acquantince of Tris, who has no idea who Nick is, but admire his 'mix CDs' which she always saves them from being thrown away by Tris. Here we can see, at the surface level both Nick and Norah are fan of musics. As the movie goes on, they learned more about each other, such as; where they come from, which band they like and what they plan to do in their future studies. It got more deeper and deeper, when Norah reveals to be falling for Nick and how she dislike Tris because of her attitude to which she even asked Nick "What do you see in her?". While Nick reveals to Norah that he thinks she's jealous of Tris and keeps on taunting her, until Norah gave a punch at his throat. In one of the scene, Nick asked Norah "Who are you?" because of the free pass entrance they got at the first club they went, and Norah did not specifically answer to his question; she only asnwered "I'm Norah.... Daughter of my dad". Towards the end of the movie, Nick finally got to know Norah's actual personality and her family background, a famous record producer's daughter; one of the thing that she did not mention during their first meeting. 

Self- Disclosure is defined as "the process of revealing personal information about oneself to another, is one of the most important fcators in the development of initmate intercultural friendships (Barnlund, 1989; Gracis, 1999; Kuda & Simkin, 2003). This means that, with self-disclosure one would know the real personality of a person in terms of his attitudes, beliefs or secrets, for example. There are two sections under self-discosure, there are; Breadth and Depth. Breadth involves in disclosing on different areas of an individual's life, whereas Depth involves in disclosing on a specific area of an individual's life (Ayla Abdullah, 2011). Another way to see it, Breadth is getting to know the person randomly by talking about different topics on a surface level, with no deep conversation occur. Depth, on the other hand, is talking about only one topic, involving deep conversation as this is where true emotions or feelings are known by another person. In the case of Nick and Norah, they briefly disclose personal information on different areas; from their origins to favourite music bands, this is what Breadth is. As for Depth, it was when Norah explain about herself, her father and what her father does.


Under depth, it deals with the degree of intimacy which is known as 'Depth of penetration'. The first stage is, "Periphal items; are exhanged more frequently and sooner then private information", again fro this we see how Nick and Norah slowly open up each other about their basic background information rather then staright ahead into personal details. Second stage, "Self disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stage of development. Law of reciprocity; A paced and orderly process in which openness in one person leads to openness in the other".This means that, as one person start to introduce a specific topic, the other might giving back their side of the story on the same topic. Third stage, "Penetration is rapid at the start, but slows down quickly when more private inner layers are reached.", this happened when Nick asked Norah about her being a daughter of someone, to which Norah decline to asnwer him and walked away; afraid to expose herself from becoming vulnerable, therefore her action in a way slows down their development in getting to know each other. Fourth stage, "Depenetration is a gradual process of layer-by-layer withdrawal", whereby relationship ends suddenly after going through various deep conversation shared. (Griffin, 2009).


As mentioned in the introduction, Social Penetration theory involves an individual going through number of stages or level of closeness and intimacy; to achieve from being stranger to familiarity. The first stage is 'Orentation Stage', which usually begins with small casual talk. In the case of Nick and Norah, their begining of relationship development starts of at 'Affective Stage', the third stage; where Norah had to kiss Nick in order to show Tris that she was dating someone, without even knowing who Nick really was. However they did go back to 'Orentation Stage', when they were at the scene in the car trying to find Caroline, a friend of Norah. 'Exploratory Affective Stage', a second stage, also played its role in opening and revealing informations to each other bit by bit. This occured, when Nick and Norah talked about their personal background, such as where they came from. The fourth stage is, 'Stable Stage', it is where relationship has become completely personal and one can tell how the other person would react to a certain topic. Although it did not happened in Nick and Norah's relationship, it did however shows that Norah reveal one of her personal details that she is a daugther of a famous record producer to Nick at the near end of the movie. Finally the 'Depenetration Stage', which it did not quite happened between Nick and Norah, eventhough they did argued, because in the end the benefit exceed the cost as the two end up staying together.


Accroding to Thibaut and Kelly in Griffin (2009), "People try to predict the outcome of an interaction before it takes place."Therefore the outcome can be a reward or a costs. If the benefits is more than the costs, often social penetration would move on to the next stage. Whereas, if the costs is more than the benefits, social penetration may either stop suddenly or one of the party withdraw from the relationship. This is also known as 'Cost-Benefit Analysis' which depends on 'Social Exchange Theory', which Griffin (2009) defined; "Relationship behavior and status regulated by both parties evaluations of perceived rewards and costs of interaction with each other." As for Nick and Norah, the benefits they got from their relatinship is that both have the same interest and are quite attracted to each other, as they got intimate towards the end of the movie.


In conclusion, the usefulness of Social Penetration Theory is that it informs us how every relationship develop into; that is at what stage they are at or what stage they stopped and 'back-off'. The theory also helps us to understand how our actions can bring us up or down to a certain stage during getting to know one another. Although, not every stages would occur for some people. There are people who are comfortably open directly to others by going ahead with discussin intimate conversations. In some cases, 'Depentration' may not even happen such as Nick and Norah. However, we must take this into account that this is only a fictional film which only portrayed how they met, going through the nights and end up together in the movie. Different people may experiences the social penetration theory differently or may neve at all. The main point of Social Penetration is therefore, focuses in predicting the future result of a relationship based on cost-benefit analysis.








References List;


Altman and Taylor (1973). In Griffin, E. (2009). A First Look At Communication Theory (7th Ed.). Glencoe, IL: McGrawHill.


Ayla Abdullah (2011). Lecture Notes. AC-1201 Introduction to Communication. Universiti Brunei Darussalam.


Barnlund (1989), Gracis (1999), Kuda & Simkin (2003). In Chen, Y. & Nakazawa, M. (July 2009). Influences of Culture on Self-Disclosure as Relationally Situated in Intercultural and Interrascial Friendships from a Social Penetration Perspective. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research; 2007, Vol. 38, Issue 2, p. 77-98. Retrieved 28 March, 2012.


Myers, G.E. and Myers, M.T. (1992). The Dynamics of Human Communication: A Laboratory Approach (6th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.