Human relationship and understanding God's Charactor

What follows is a research paper I wrote not that long ago on the social penetration theory. Many times class assignments can feel asinine but it is up to us to take any prompt and make it applicable to our own lives and something that interests us. so feel free to dig in and let me know what you think. No it is not short. Yes I intend to provide in depth topics to discuss because I am tired of everything being dumbed down or just giving the short version. thus, if you want it, be the change you want to see. Good luck!
Social Penetration Theory:
Human Relations and understanding God’s Character

Social Penetration Theory: Human Relations and Penetrating God’s Character
Introduction
Mankind has spent lifetimes seeking to understand its relationship with the world. As humans interact with each other, relationships form and dissolve over time. To explain this cycle of relationship development, Altman and Taylor (1973) proposed the social penetration theory (SPT). Although their theory was based on human relationships, I propose that it also offers a working theory about the nature of God’s relationship with man. This concept will be explored by first looking at a literary study of Altman and Taylor’s SPT and related works, then using the findings from those studies to draw comparisons to the biblical context of God’s relationship to man. With the data offered in studies of both same gender and opposite gender relationship development across cultures, I posit that social penetration theory is not only a solid theory of human interaction today, but that a correlation can be made to man’s relationship with the Almighty God through the millennia.
Defining Social Penetration Theory
In the early 1960’s Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor began work on a new theory to explain the initiation, maturity, and at times, the decline of relationships. For Altman and Taylor, self-disclosure with reciprocity was the key element to increasing intimacy in any relationship. They theorized that, like an onion, the more one disclosed about themselves, and the deeper to the core personality, the more intimate a relationship would become. From this conceptualization, the social penetration theory was formed. A theory is a way of looking at things through a certain lens and Social penetration theory, or SPT, looks at human communication through a lens of self-disclosure and closeness.
Using an onion as an analogy for a person’s personality, the outer layer represents information that is easy to share. As the layers are peeled back, there is a “breadth of penetration, which is the amount of interaction, information exchange per unit of time (Taylor, 1968).” Depth refers to the degree of intimacy of the information being shared during a typical conversation (Taylor, 1968). Information in the outer layer typically includes things such as gender, clothing styles, and favorite activities. Political views, religious understandings and relationship statuses will tend to be on deeper layers than this surface level information. Hopes and dreams about the future normally will reside closer to the core of the onion metaphor, along with deepest held beliefs, fears, and core personality traits. According to Littlejohn and Foss (2011, p. 236) Altman and Taylor’s original 1973 idea was constructed off of the well accepted principle that humans act and behave based on a cost/reward ratio. In other words, humans will make their decisions to engage in a relationship based on the perceived benefits versus the costs associated with that relationship. This proposition of economics within a relationship fits with the sociopsychological tradition. Thus, this social exchange is a constant balancing act between cost and reward (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011, p 236).
“Altman & Taylor suggest four stages of relational development: 1) orientation; 2) exploratory affective exchange; 3) affective exchange; and 4) stable exchange (Littlejohn and Foss, 2011, p236).” The first of these stages describes the initiation of relationships. This orientation phases is when people share the most public parts of their life, or the outmost layers. Exploratory affective exchange is the next level of self-disclosure and is entered if the orientation phase is meet with positive reciprocity. It is during this phase that the information exchanged gains depth.
Next, both parties must evaluate the rewards gained thus far and consider whether further commitment to the relationship will yield higher reward to risk ratios. If substantial benefit has been gained through the previous stages and more reward is perceived from proceeding, the relationship can move into the third stage of affective exchange. The information shared in this level should be of more substance and depth and any previous exchange. Here relationships quickly move from levels of romantic partnerships to considerations for more permanent partnerships such as marriage or cohabitants. The final stage of stable exchange occurs once a relationship reaches a stable plane where both partners feel they know the other well enough to predict the others actions and know how to respond well (Littlejohn and Foss, 2011, p.237).
Altman and Taylor’s original 1973 theory of social penetration looked at relationship development like a forwarding letter. Within each letter is another message to be forwarded, which has a further letters inside, each to be sent on. In this way, each layer of persona would linearly lead to the next deeper layer. This concept did not hold up to real world application of relationships, and thus the theory was updated in 1975 to consider the layers more like an onion or spherical concept. Within this perspective, relationship self-disclosure is no longer linear but is instead an ever shifting exchange of both public and private information. The updated version of the SPT still holds up to real world application today.
The Relationship between God and Man
According to Genesis 1 (English Standard Version): in the beginning, was God. With God was the Word, and together God and the Word were one. With the Word, God created the heavens and the earth, forming light in the heavens to warm the earth. For six days God spoke using the living Word to add layers upon layers to the world, each new creation building a masterpiece to display His nature and glory. In this world, God created man in His own image, and taught him how to use the spoken word to give meaning to His creation. It took time to build this world, and God gave man a lifetime to learn about it and to explore this creation. God knew it would take a millennia for man to grasp His own nature, but time was good. It allowed for the cultivation of relationship between Himself and man.
As time passed, God showed man deeper layers about Himself, starting with the stars, in which He had painted the whole story of the universe and His love. One by one God brought the animals He had created before man to be named, and in so doing, for man to take responsibility for their well-being. The more man named, the more he had responsibility for, and the more aspects of the Father he was able to take in. Named Adam, man and God the Father would have progressed through the breadth and depth of their relationship at an acceptable rate had Adam been willing to take his time. However, this was not to be, and when he ate of the apple of knowledge from the tree of life, all of his own nature hit him with such force that he could not comprehend himself, let alone the glory of the God who chose to walk with him each day. Perhaps it was too much depth for Adam before he could fully grasp the breadth of God’s character, for in this act of eating the apple, Adam betrayed his relationship with God. Thus the first earthly relationship was broken because too much was shared in a relationships infancy. It would take generations for that amount of knowledge to be digested and deemed acceptable before full repairs to this relationship could be established.
Literary review
The Social Penetration Theory or SPT that was put forth by Altman and Taylor in 1973 has given rise to a wide array of studies. The host of these studies (Altman & Haythorn, 1965; Cozby, 1972; Taylor & Altman, 1975; Sundstrum & Altman, 1976; Hill & Stull, 1982; Solano & Dunnam, 1985; Chen & Nakazawa, 2009) have focused on self-disclosure and how various cultures, genders and networks navigate the breadth and depth of knowledge about each other. For this review, focus will be on how these studies analyzed aspects of the formation of interpersonal relationships and, where applicable, show that when information of a deep nature is exchanged early in an interpersonal relationship, it can be detrimental, sometimes taking years to reach the needed amount of time for such exchanges to become acceptable.
Dalmas Taylor (1968) produced a study on the development of interpersonal relationships by looking at self-disclosure across cultures. This 1968 study would serve as part of the foundational research for Altman and Taylor’s (1973) Social Penetration Theory. In the study, Taylor looks at the differences in self-disclosure between German an American college students, theorizing that over time the rate of intimate self-disclosure would increase. In addition he expected to see a faster exchange between high disclosers vs low disclosers. His study was conducted using college roommates with best friends being the target. Taylor devised a 30 item questionnaire for roommates to complete throughout the semester in weeks 1, 3, 6, 9, and 13. The results of this study showed that high revealers engaged their roommates in more activities regularly than did the low disclosers. Both groups reported an increased number of activities engaged over time. However it was noted that the discrepancy between these levels was consistent, showing that the rate of exchange was the same for both groups over the given time despite the level of breadth in disclosure. This discovery would later help make the generalized case for social penetration being a consistent rate of disclosure over a given period of time.
In 1972, Paul Cozby conducted a study on self-disclosure showing that people who were low disclosers where often considered outsiders and very high disclosers where viewed as maladjusted. Cozby described this high discloser as being similar to an animal getting too close and triggering threat warnings, while low disclosers are more like animals who stayed far away from a group and thus are not typically considered a member of that group (Cozby, 1972). Throughout the study, the median disclosers where the most liked. This fits with SPT’s concept that only a certain amount should be disclosed over a unit of time. As the relationship progresses and disclosure is reciprocated, deeper layers may be explored at a steady pace. As was shown in this study, when large amounts of intimate information is shared readily, anxiety increases in the partner, causing increased cost to maintaining such a relationship. It is reasonable to conclude that in many cases, this increased cost will be perceived to outweigh the benefits of such a relationship at the current time (Cozby, 1972).
Dalmas Taylor and Irwin Altman continued their studies on self-disclosure and social penetration with their 1975 study which considered self-disclosure as a function of reward to cost outcomes (Taylor & Altman, 1975). This study was conducted on sailors who were told they would be given time to learn about a teammate whom they would be living with for six months in an underwater capsule. As part of this study Altman and Taylor added an element of commitment as a variable to see how levels of intimacy would vary between two groups of sailors. One group was told they would be able to change partners after one week. The other was under the belief that they would remain with this new partner for the entirety of their underwater mission (long term non-withdraw). The method employed by this study was to have fifty-six sailors initiate conversation over an intercom with another sailor, who in this experiment was a confederate of the researchers. Conversation categories were selected from a deck of cards with nine topics preselected with varying levels of intimacy, three high, three medium and three low. The sailors were allowed to disclose themselves in an open ended conversation within the context indicated by their card. A minimum of two topics was required but no limit on total topics was given. Each of four sessions lasted about 45 minutes with the next session beginning as soon as a full questionnaire was completed about each candidate. The reward to cost aspect of the experiment was controlled by the preselected responses of the confederate with four conditions. The first was a “continuous positive” reciprocity reaction in which the confederate returned around 80% positive responses throughout the four sessions. The second condition was a “later positive” in which the confederate was negative in his responses for the first session but then was positive 80% of the time for the last three sessions. The third condition was a continuous negative where 80% of the time in all four sessions the confederate would return negative responses. The final category was a later negative, where the confederate started positive and then in the later three sessions was negative 80% of the time. Data was collected related to the average time talked, breadth or number of different items chosen to discuss, and the depth of mean intimacy of each topic. Results showed that interpersonal exchange deepens over time, and that social penetration is effected by interpersonal reward and costs. Those who saw shifts from negative to positive tended to talk more about themselves. Altman and Taylor noted that the literature on this finding are inconsistent and very limited because most studies have used a measure of liking instead of self-disclosure aspects. The results further show that the later positive group had higher levels of self-disclosure. The results did not show a coordination to increased attraction, only increases in self-disclosure. Following experiment predictions, the continuous positive group disclosed the most of the four groups with continuous negative group offering the least self-disclosure. The positive responses in the long-term (non-withdraw) conditions did produce greater breadth of conversation than the short-term. The results showed that those who were in the long term condition were willing to disclose more even in the negative with a shift to positive because there was a more potential reward if opening up produced a more positive condition for a longer term. All of the results confirmed and solidified those found in the original theory experiments. This significantly increases the support for the understanding that the level of intimacy and disclosure increases over time, and that in a no withdraw situation people will tend to disclose more with the hopes of increasing positive reciprocity (Taylor and Altman, 1975).
Sundstrom and Altman compiled current research on interpersonal relationships and personal space in order to show how “friends or people who like one another prefer close distances, but under some conditions close proximity is intrusive and uncomfortable, especially for strangers (Sundstrom and Altman,1976).” It was shown in Cozby’s research (Cosby, 1972) that those engaged in conversation unanimously chose a proximity that was closer than the maximum possible distance. From the various studies considered, Sunstrom and Altman concluded that “positive affection, friendship and attraction are all associated with closer proximity (Sunstrom and Altman, 1976).” It is concluded that with greater levels of intimacy in conversation and self-disclosure, that physical distance also becomes more intimate.
Irwin Altman and William Haythorn (1965), while working for the Naval Medical Research Institute conducted research on the interpersonal relationships that form and are maintained in isolation. This research was critical for understanding how troops living in close quarters like submarines, naval ships, as well as Arctic or Antarctic bases would function and help to avoid long term conflicts. This study revealed that in isolated situations, where people have no other contact, people will disclose deeper levels of information. This study found that the breadth of information remained relatively constant among the control groups, but the more isolated the dyad, the more intimate the self-disclosure was found to be. It is reasonable to conclude that the amount of time spent together, along with the perceived need to connect leads people to disclose more about themselves (Altman and Haythorn, 1965)
As these studies where being done, in addition to several others that focused on disclosure reciprocity (Cozby, 1972; Solano & Dunnam, 1985) there has been some confusion in the field about the conceptualization and measure of disclosure reciprocity. In order to help clear up these confusions, Charles Hill and Donald Stull (1982) compiled a manuscript with the intention of bringing more clarity to the terms and concepts used in previous and future studies. Their definitions on reciprocity, explanations of time frames of reciprocity and the units of analysis will be used throughout this paper (Hill and Stull, 1982).
Continuing on the research of self-disclosure, Solano and Dunnam (1985) sought to expand the field of research from being limited to dyads, to include larger groups. This study primarily focused on triad groups. In 1977 Derlega and Chaikin offered their extension to SPT by positing that for intimate disclosure to occur, the speaker must feel safe in the relationship. This extension led Solano and Dunnam to question what happens when information goes beyond the dyad. Their experiment was one of the first to explore self-disclosure with various group sizes in a highly structured manner. Their results found substantial differences between dyad and larger group disclosure with their results confirming and expanding upon those of Taylor, De Soto, and Lieb (1979). This study further found that disclosure levels decrease with the increase in group size, with no variation found due to gender.
Now that the foundations for SPT have been established, it is possible to use the research to begin to apply the theory and flesh out whether or not it is applicable in all areas of human relationship. Chen and Nakazawa (2009) decided to do just that with their research on interracial and intercultural friendship study, conducted from a social penetration perspective. Their study along with Hammer and Gudykunst’s (1987) research on the influence of Ethnicity and sex agree that the social penetration theory is indeed applicable across cultures and genders in that the breadth and depth of self-disclosure increase over time as relationships develop. While there are notable differences in the levels of disclosure between various cultures and ethnicities, the overall model is consistent, and the four stages of relationships as put forth by Altman and Taylor (1973) hold true according to both studies.
With the advent of the internet and social media, more research is needed on how relationships form through computer mediated communication. One study that attempts to peel back the layers of intimacy in Facebook friendships of college students is by Yang, Brown, and Braun (2014). This study found that even in the current fast paced world of instant messaging and text, there is a social norm to relationship forming that must be followed. Altman and Taylor’s four stages of development hold true, with Facebook serving as an initiation, and a cell phone call becoming a second layer of depth before additional face to face time is deemed acceptable. People who attempt to bypass stages or move through them quickly are perceived as forward or awkward.
At the deepest levels of social interaction, social penetration theory suggests that the core layers of a person’s being may be shared with an intimate partner. When this happens, it is often with a spouse due to the fact that this type of relationship offers the highest security and lowest risk to reward ratio. James Honeycutt (1986) modeled marital function using social penetration dimensions to find that the depth of perceived understanding between spouses played a critical role in marriage satisfaction. By attempting to achieve a perceived partner understanding in the process of goal attainment instead of directly going after the goal, higher levels of satisfaction where achieved. Honeycutt, Wilson and Parker (1982) collaborated on a work on the effects of sex and degrees of happiness based on communication styles which also found that communication by partners to attempt to understand decisions was crucial to satisfaction. Altman and Taylor’s (1973) SPT suggests that greater flexibility in communication style will lead to stronger and more stable relationships. The SPT also suggests that a more stable relationship will have a greater breadth and deeper levels of disclosure. Both Honeycutt’s 1986 study and Honeycutt, Wilson, and Parker’s 1982 study provide additional evidence for these concepts.
When applied to ethics, the social penetration theory provides a suitable structure for analysis of workplace theft. Negative actions such as theft of company property can be rationalized by their relative low cost to the offended party, which can then lead to larger cost actions as the employee moves deeper into the organization (Baack, Fogliasso, Harris, 2000). In this way, it can been theories that as an employee becomes a more important part of an organization, the rationalization could be made for them to feel owned by the company more than they are compensated. SPT suggests that at more intimate levels, more reciprocity would be expected to maintain the relationship (Altman &Taylor 1975). Applying SPT in this manner does not provide a moral justification for such action as theft, but does help explain how an employee might believe such action is acceptable, and how these actions might progress from small items to full scale embezzlement.
Analysis
“Altman and Taylors (1973) social penetration theory, conceives of information as a means for developing intimacy as well as a way to evaluate the rewards and costs that may be associated with a relationship (Vangelisti, 2011, p. 598)”. Under SPT relationships progress through stages with an increase of the breadth and depth of intimate information exchanged at each subsequent level. This concept of a natural progression of depth and breadth has held true across genders, cultures, and varying sizes of groups. It is notable that there are variations in the amount of information disclosed as well as the depth reached for each group, however the general pattern has remained consistent (Sundstrom & Altman, 1976; Honeycutt, Wilson, & Parker, 1982; Solano & Dunnam, 1985; Hammer & Gudykunst 1987; Chen & Nakazawa 2009). Altman and Taylor (1973) also argued that people only progress down the layers of a relationship so long as the perceived rewards associated with doing so remain notably higher than the costs of remaining in the relationship. The risk/reward calculations have been proven to be a strong indicator of relational stability both in interpersonal relationships as well as organizational dynamics. Even when considering social media, the risks associated with face to face meetings often outweigh perceived rewards, thus preventing further interactions until the proper stages of the relationship have been reached.
Altman and Taylor (1975) theorized that in order for a relationship to progress and be maintained there must be reciprocity with to breadth and depth of disclosure. Reciprocity was showed to be essential in all studies, though the research did suggest that reciprocity did not need to be a one to one relation, but instead only had to maintain the cost/reward ratio as perceived by both parties. Originally Altman and Taylor (1973) saw relationship formation as a linear process. This did not hold up in real world application, which led to the current, updated version of the theory which views relationship penetration as cyclical process in which dyads proceed in a back-and-forth process between intimate and public knowledge in their disclosures. In today’s social media rich culture, SPT needs additional research on how the four stages of relationship development are affected when a relationship transitions from strictly computer mediated into a face to face conversations. The research on computer mediated relationships show that SPT is an applicable model, but has not been fleshed out enough to include the new layers of relationship development that social media adds.

God, Man and Social Penetration
In Genesis 1(English Standard Version), God introduces himself to man in the Garden of Eden. It was here that God gave man the name of Adam, introduced Himself, and initiated the orientation phase of relationship building. Altman and Taylor’s (1973) SPT says that each layer of depth requires time to be processed. Thus, as it is applied to creation, it can be seen that God built the world to display His nature, allowing man to explore at his own pace. In this way, man would be able to come to know God’s nature and being in a time frame that was acceptable and worth of God’s immense character. When Eve joined Adam, their relationship followed the same progression as they worked in the garden together. This exploratory affective exchange phase saw God walking in the garden with Adam and Eve while they learned about each other and the world created for them. Unfortunately, when Adam and Eve chose to eat of the apple of knowledge, the weight the reward of knowing as being greater than the cost of disobeying God. To this point, they had never known God’s wrath and likely had a very limited knowledge structure from which to base such a decision. Eating from the apple must have been like drinking from a wide open firehose, with a full comprehension of their wrong doing and God’s goodness hitting them all at once.
SPT suggests that such deep level information early on in a relationship often is detrimental as the risks to reward ratio’s become drastically skewed. Once Adam knew what it truly was that he had done, he hid from God, because the cost of facing the all-knowing God was so great, and he now comprehended how small he truly was. God then cast both Adam and Eve out of the garden. This is often seen as a punishment for their disobeying Him, however I believe is was far more than simple cause and effect. God understood that in order for man to reach a place where he would be ready to further his relationship with God, man would have to spend generations sorting through God’s character and exploring the creation He made, as well as building his own story to share with God. At the time when Adam ate of the apple, Adam had nothing to reciprocate God’s immense disclosure with. This would not have been an issue without the apple, but with it, man now felt the need to earn God’s love, and to have his own life to disclose about.
It would take millennia before man would be ready to accept all that has been disclosed, and that is when God sent himself, in the form of Jesus to reinitiate the relationship. This was man’s opportunity to once again talk with God and build a relationship to last eternal. We see in the gospel of Matthew chapter 5 that Jesus began His relationship with a select few disciples. To mankind, Jesus preached in parables and stories, for He know they would need time to fully understand the magnitude of His mission. Those who chose to spend the more time with Jesus shared the most with Him and to those twelve Jesus revealed the most about God and His mission to reach to world. This is consistent with the studies of Altman and Haythorn (1965) as well as Sundstrom and Altman (1976) which concluded that disclosure and physical distance combined with prolonged time together produced deeper and more intimate relationships. From the studies of Social penetration theory and application to the Bible, I posit that social penetration theory is not only a solid theory of human interaction today, but helps to explain God’s relationship with Man through the millennia.

References
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