Social Penetration Theory: Video Analysis

The purpose of this essay is to show the Social Penetration theory is depicted in the “Take a Seat, Make a Friend Video”. Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor coined the term, Social penetration which can be described as a “process of developing intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability”. In this essay, I plan to report how this video was used to depict social penetration, self-disclosure, and the first step in social penetration theory.

In the video, we are shown a community service project by Ali Edelstein whose purpose was to get the community involved by meeting other people. The first step in social penetration is noticing a familiar shape or subject with another person. Once you see that you

Many people were surprised to find that the person with them was also interested or shared the same characteristics as the. For example, when both the lady and boy shared that they both had a flipper tooth. The odds of that happening are slim and the fact that it happened through the exercise was even more intriguing. This depicts how self-disclosure was used in the social penetration theory. Self-disclosure increases the depth and breadth of penetration by creating these relationships. These two people were able to make a deep connection based on the fact that they both had fake teeth. From this scene, you notice that the woman was much shyer about her fake tooth, which proves that the theory works because the boy was able to make her feel at ease. Being transparent with one another was key in this exercise because that is when the participants began learning the most about one another. In order for social penetration theory to work you need a positive participants and people who are willing to commit to the relationship. All the participants who took part in the study were in fact willing because they themselves decided to enter the ball pen. This exercise shows how people handle being put in a different environment and how they bring forward their values, feelings, and attitudes. It also showed how self-disclosure had to be reciprocal in order for these conversations to have