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Social Penetration Theory Social penetration theory states that the development of a relationship is closely linked to systematic changes in communication. Relationships generally begin with the exchange of superficial information and gradually move on to more meaningful conversations. In order to develop a more intimate relationship partners must increase the breadth and depth of their conversations. Breadth includes the variety of topics two people discuss and depth is the personal significance of these topics.[3] Altman and Taylor use a wedge to explain this theory. In this example, the beginning of a relationship is represented by a narrow and shallow wedge because only a few topics are discussed. However, as the relationship goes on the wedge should become broader and deeper because more topics are discussed that have more personal significance. This wedge must drive through three layers in order for intimacy to develop. The first layer is the superficial layer where couples make “small talk.” These conversations usually provide little personal information about the speakers. The next layer is the intimate level where the couple increases the breadth and depth of their conversations and share more personal details until the wedge reaches the very intimate level where extremely private information is shared[3] Intimacy in these relationships can only develop if both partners reciprocate disclosures. Intimacy will not develop if only one partner discloses and the other continues to reveal only superficial information. According to this theory, this process of reciprocity needs to be gradual and partners need to match the intimacy of the disclosures. Saying something too personal too soon creates an imbalance in the relationship which can make the other partner very uncomfortable. This gradual process varies from relationship to relationship and can depend on the specific partner one is communicating with.[3] Research has shown that for some couples, the early period of openness is followed by a quick decline in self-disclosure. There are also long-term marriages in which greater and greater disclosure is followed by a leveling off of disclosure and perhaps decline. And still another pattern is when people click right away so that disclosure occurs quickly rather than in gradual fashion.[4] Reciprocity and intimacy Reciprocity is a positive response from the person with whom one is sharing information, whereby the person who was received the disclosure self-discloses in turn. Self-disclosure usually influences whether two people will want to interact again. Research has shown that when one person self-discloses, another person is more likely to self-disclose. Initially, the process is started by one partner's reveal of personal information to the other partner. In return, the other will disclose something and behave in such a way so as to be responsive to the initial disclosure's content, while also conveying a degree of understanding and validation for what was revealed.[5] Research has found that people who consider themselves to be high in disclosure are likely to be good at eliciting more disclosure from those with whom they interact.[6] Three theories describe reciprocity: The social attraction-trust hypothesis, social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity. The social attraction-trust hypothesis says that people disclose to one another because they believe the person who disclosed to them likes and trusts them. Social exchange theory explains that people attempt to maintain equality in self-disclosure because an imbalance in this makes them uncomfortable. The third explanation, the norm of reciprocity, argues that reciprocating disclosure is a social norm and violating it makes a person uncomfortable. There are two types of reciprocity: turn-taking reciprocity and extended reciprocity. Turn-taking is when partners immediately self-disclose with one another and extended is when disclosure happens over a period of time, in which one partner may be the only one disclosing while the other just listens. Those who engage in turn taking reciprocity are shown to like their interaction partners more than those who engage in extended reciprocity. Turn taking partners are also shown to feel closer and similar to each other and to enjoy the other’s company more than extended pairs. This can be explained by the social attraction-trust hypothesis because the partners perceive the discloser as liking and trusting them because they disclosed personal information. Those who engage in extended reciprocity are affected by the social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity which can account for the lower degree of liking. Since extended reciprocity limits reciprocating disclosure it creates an imbalance in disclosure which violates both of these theories.[7] That said, people usually report that they themselves are disclosing more than is the other partner. This is called perceived partner reciprocity, and it is critical to the self-disclosure process in developing relationships.[6] Two key components for intimacy are disclosure and partner responsiveness. It is extremely important that when a speaker discloses personal information their partner also discloses something personally relevant. It is also essential that the listener understand, validate and care about what the speaker is disclosing. If the speaker does not feel accepted by the listener then they may not disclose something to them in the future, which stops the development of intimacy. Emotional disclosures are also shown to foster intimacy more than factual disclosures. Factual disclosures reveal facts and information about the self (e.g., “I am divorced from my husband.”) while emotional disclosures reveal a person’s feelings, thoughts and judgments (e.g., “My divorce was so painful it has made it difficult for me to trust a romantic partner again”). Emotional disclosures can increase intimacy because they allow the listener to confirm and support the discloser’s self-view.[8] The transition from sharing impersonal to personal facts is crucial to the building of an intimate relationship. One must feel accepted in order to feel comfortable enough to self-disclose. Without acceptance, one partner will withdraw and fail to reveal personal facts within the relationship. Sharing our selves also brings us out of our imaginary worlds and allows us to see the realities of the world we live in.[9] We are most comfortable sharing with those whom we like and feel like us. There is also evidence that someone who introduces himself with more intimacy is more likely to facilitate self-disclosure and intimacy with the recipient. Thus, self-disclosure breeds intimacy.[10] This is why reveal ourselves most and discuss the widest range of topics with our spouses and loved ones.[2] We often perceive our own self-disclosure as higher than our partner's, which can lead to ill feelings. It is hard for humans to accurately judge how fully another is disclosing to them.[6] Individual differences in reciprocity Self-monitoring Self-monitoring is a form of impression management in which a person examines a situation and behaves accordingly. Although self-monitoring is measured on a continuous scale, researchers often group individuals into two types: high and low self-monitors. Someone who is a high self-monitor tends to examine a situation more closely and adjusts their behavior in order “fit in” with others in the scenario. High self-monitors tend to behave in a friendlier and extroverted manner in order to be well liked by peers. A low self-monitor does not do this and tends to follow their own emotions and thoughts when behaving in public.[11] Since they are more attuned to social cues, high self-monitors are generally better at assessing the level of intimacy a partner is disclosing. By noticing these cues, high self-monitors tend to reciprocate equally in their self-disclosures.[12] This can be explained by the norm of reciprocity because the high self-monitors can pick up on these cues easily and know that they need to respond with their own disclosure. It can also be explained by social exchange theory. Research shows that high self-monitors are more uncomfortable when paired with a low self-monitor because low self-monitors do not tend to disclose intimate details so the balance in the conversation is uneven. High self-monitors are also shown to be the “pace-setters” of the conversation and generally initiate and maintain the flow of a conversation.[12] Mood Those in a positive mood have been found to disclose more intimately than those in a negative mood. This may be because of informational effects whereby happy people tend to access more positive information which leads them to behave in a more optimistic and confident manner. Unhappy people tend to access more negative information which increases the likelihood of cautious, pessimistic and restrained communications.[13] This may also be due to processing effects, in particular assimilation and accommodation effects. Assimilation effects rely on an individual’s prior knowledge to guide their behavior in a situation and accommodation effects rely on careful monitoring of a situation and a greater attention to concrete information. Assimilative processing is ideal for safe, routine situations while accommodative processing is for problematic situations. Happy people tend to use assimilative processing, which leads to more daring and direct disclosures, while unhappy people use accommodative processing, which leads them to be more cautious in their disclosures. These accommodating effects for unhappy people tend to increase reciprocity because these individuals will match the level of disclosure from their partner but will not go beyond that.[13] However, it can also be said that being distressed, anxious, or fearful (which would be classified as negative mood states) can accelerate disclosure as well. The exception to this is loneliness, for lonely individuals have shown decreased rates of self-disclosure.[1] Gender Whether or not one sex shares more readily is a heated debate in social psychology, but sex-role identities play a large part in the amount one chooses to reveal to another. Androgynous people disclose more intimately across contexts than do notably masculine and feminine people.[1] Research findings on gender differences in self-disclosure are mixed. Women self-disclose to enhance a relationship, while men self-disclose relative to their control and vulnerabilities. Men initially disclose more in heterosexual relationships. Women tend to put more emphasis on intimate communication with same-sex friends than men do.[14] In relationships, there are still other factors that contribute to the likelihood of disclosure. In men, self-disclosure and the level of disclosure they perceive from their wives is positively correlated with their self-esteem. For both genders, the state of a relationship and the feelings associated with it are major contributors to how much each spouse reveals himself or herself. Husbands and wives in a relationship marked with satisfaction, love, and commitment rate their own levels of disclosure highly as well as their perceptions of their spouses' disclosures.[6] Additional individual differences Being shy decreases self-disclosure. Among men, those who are or appear more "tough" are less likely to disclose and express themselves.[1] Motivation for disclosure is also critical: does the individual need to present himself or herself in a certain way in order to gain certain benefits, and does the self-disclosure match the person's sense of ideal self? We like to present ourselves in ways that we feel are congruent with our own self-concepts, and what we tell others about ourselves often becomes how we actually are.[1] Sexual self-disclosure Sexual self-disclosure is the act of revealing one's sexual preferences to another, usually to one's sexual partner. This allows an even deeper level of understanding between two people and fosters even more intimacy as a result of the disclosures. Likewise, relationship satisfaction was found to correlate with sexual disclosures. For men, high levels of sexual self-disclosure predicted higher relationship satisfaction, though this was not found to be true for women. But, sexual satisfaction was linked to higher levels of sexual self-disclosure for both men and women. Further, those who disclose more sexually have been found to have less sexual dysfunction.[15] In marriage Self-disclosure is a method of relationship maintenance, aiming to keep partners satisfied with their relationship. Partners learn a shared communication system, and disclosures are a large part of building that system, which has been found to be very beneficial in highly satisfying relationships.[6] Significant positive relationships have been found between multiple measures of relationship satisfaction and the levels of spouses' disclosure on the Social Penetration Scale.[16] Further, affection and support are provided to most in the most important ways through marriage. Surveys done by a variety of researchers have found that people list marriage as the ultimate form of intimacy. Spouses feel responsible, in that they need to be responsive to their partners' self-disclosures, more so than they feel obligated to respond to the disclosures of people in their other relationships.[5] In a study by Laurenceau and colleagues, several differences were found in the satisfaction of spouses based on their daily-diary recordings of self-disclosures in their daily interactions. The results show that the actual disclosures in the process of self-disclosure may not be the only factors that facilitate intimacy in relationships. Husbands' intimacy was most strongly predicted by self-disclosure, while perceived responsiveness to disclosure was the stronger predictor for wives' feelings of intimacy with their husbands.[5] A different study found evidence of wives' perceptions of their husbands' self-disclosures as being a strong predictor of how long a couple will stay together. Those who think their husbands are not sharing enough are likely to break up sooner. This finding links to the idea of positive illusions in relationship studies.[6] For husbands, the actual act of self-disclosure is more indicative of their feelings of intimacy with their wives. On the other hand, wives are thought to value more the feelings of being understood and validated by their husbands' responsiveness to their disclosures, and this is the more important factor in their feelings of intimacy in their marriages.[5][16] Related to these findings, those husbands who reported the highest ratings of global marital satisfaction showed the highest ratings in daily intimacy. Similarly, the wives who rated their global satisfaction highest also had higher levels of daily intimacy. Greater martial satisfaction was found among those who had the higher ratings of intimacy. Further, couples with high levels of demand-withdraw communication rated their average daily intimacy as much lower. This suggests a relationship between one's overall marital satisfaction and the amount of intimacy in a relationship, though no causation can be proven with the present research.[5] Self-esteem has also been found to be a predictor of satisfaction, with couples exhibiting both high self-esteem and high self-disclosure levels being the most satisfied in their relationships.[16] More disclosures of unpleasant feelings led to less marital satisfaction in recent studies, and disclosure is affected the minute a relationship is stressed, as feelings of less attachment to a spouse promote decreased self-disclosure. Likewise, less intimacy leads to more negative disclosures between partners.[17] However, findings by Tolstedt and Stokes (1984) suggest that the depth of self-disclosure actually increases as the intimacy of a relationship decreases. The breadth of disclosure decreases with decreasing intimacy as originally predicted, but couples actually disclose more deeply. It is speculated that these results come about because a strained relationship causes spouses to restrict their topics of communication (breadth), but that they are also more willing to discuss deeply intimate subjects: the negative ones. Thus, while they are sharing more deeply, it is mostly in a negative light. The researchers then speculated that people might actually avoid disclosing very personal facts in the most satisfying relationships because they are fearful that their positive relationships will be negatively affected.[2] As time progresses, disclosure in marriage has been found to decrease, often around the time that spouses reach their 40's. It is suggested that at this stage partners know each other quite well and are very satisfied with what they communicate already.[16] Process People first disclose facts then emotions and disclose mostly positive information in the early stages of a relationship. Some speculate that disclosures and their respective responses from a spouse lead to intimacy between the partners, and these exchanges accumulate into global and positive evaluations of the relationship by the couple. In support, studies show that couples who report greater levels of intimacy in self-reports of their daily interactions are also those who report increased global relationship functioning in their marriages.[5] Further, the importance of disclosure in a relationship might change over time as it relates in different ways to various factors of a relationship, such as responsiveness and love, especially at the beginning of a relationship.[6] Effects of group size on self-disclosure Disclosure also changes as group size increases. As a group gets larger, people become less willing to disclose. Research has shown that individuals are more willing to disclose in groups of two than in larger groups and are more willing to disclose in a group of three rather than four. The actual disclosures mimic the willingness to disclose as individuals disclose more in pairs than they do in the larger groups. There are also gender differences in disclosure depending on group size. Men feel more inhibited in dyads, match the intimacy of the disclosure from their partner, and do not offer more information. Women, on the other hand, feel more inhibited in larger groups and disclose more personal information in dyads.[18] |
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