The phrase, "social penetration" came from psychologists and researchers, Altman and Taylor. The social penetration "process" is a process of exchange in interpersonal communication (Allensworth, 1996). This theory is described by creating relationships. The model of the onion is the best model because it shows the layers of developing those relationships with others (Carpenter & Greene, 2015).
Breadth - number of topics you discuss
Depth - level of intimacy that we discuss with others.
Below is a video from the series Friends. There are several examples in each video where a relationship between two characters are greatly developed.
This example is showing the Social Penetration Theory from Chandler meeting Monica for the first time ever. Monica tries to impress him to make him dinner for Thanksgiving and Chandler dismisses her comment. This shows the theory by Monica and Chandler having no depth or breadth at first.
This video shows that Monica and Chandler eventually developed a relationship as friends over the years. They shared more depth and had more breadth in their friendship. They are so close of friends by being comfortable enough to talk outside of a bathroom.
This video shows the depth and breadth of the Monica and Chandler's relationship. They eventually proposed each other, showing us that they had developed one of the deepest "levels" of intimacy in their relationship using the Social Penetration theory.
This is a picture showing the "levels" of communication through interpersonal relationships using the social penetration theory.
References:
Allensworth, N. J. (1996, March 28). Social penetration: A description, research, and evaluation. ERIC. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED403615.
Carpenter, A., & Greene, K. (2015). Social penetration theory. Wiley Online Library. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118540190.wbeic160.
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