Irwin Altham & Dalmas Taylor proposed a " social penetration theory" that explains how relational closeness develops. This psychological theory, as with many ithers is applied in the context of interpersonal relationships such as communications. Develops the penetration deeper and deeper into an intimate; private and personal matters. This express vulnirabilities so that 'trust' exist to develop along the way.
The mainmodel of social penetration is symbol to show how a relationship, live an onion has layers that lead to a deeper point.
This can be seen in conversation at parties, as stranger steadily chat each other up.
This is from Taylor and Altman 1973:
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. 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.
5. Depenetration. When the relationship starts to break down and costs exceed benefits, then there is a withdrawal of disclosure which leads to termination of the relationship.
Penetration
Is Rapid at the start but slows down quickly as the tightly wrappred inner layers and reached.
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