In day to day activities, we intermingle with many people of diverse cultural beliefs, principles and personalities. We might meet them in informal or formal arenas, but these people impact lives in different ways whereby by we might remember some to eternity while others pass unnoticed. We also encounter people who we might never get to know until after-life. Human beings interact with each other on a daily basis. Through these interactions great relationships get developed (Spring ). We make acquaintances, business networks, intimate friends and general friends. Today, there are many channels of communication with notable development in social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-in. Though the social networks and other media of communication have made the transmission of information easier than ever before, the complex process of interpersonal communication does not seem to loosen the knot. Theories and concepts such as Self-Disclosure, Uncertainty Reduction Theory, and Relational Dialects Theory explain the behavior of human beings in interpersonal communication. This paper focuses on Altman & Taylor’s Social Penetration Theory.
“Social Penetration Theory states that as relationships develop, communication moves from relatively shallow, non-intimate levels to deeper, more personal ones”. In other words, this theory relates the strength of the bond in a given relationship to the amount of time the parties involved spend together; it is a theory of relational closeness. Social Penetration Theory compares people to a multilayered onion. According to Altman & Taylor, people’s opinion, beliefs, prejudice, and obsessions form layers around and within a person. These layers get shed away as people get familiar with each other, to reveal the inner person. The layers have both breadth and depth. The layers represent an array of topics that get incorporated into people’s lives. On the other hand, depth refers to the amount of information concerning each topic. The outermost shells of this “person-onion” contain the most obvious levels of information about the person including dress-code and speech. Inside, increasingly personal details about feelings, thoughts and lives of individuals get hidden. For a person to give more information than the visible speech and dress-code, the relationship must have developed in depth. As the relationship becomes more intimate, more personal details get shared providing both breadth and depth.