According to the book, Social penetration refers to (1) overt interpersonal behaviors which take place in social interaction and (2) internal subjective processes which precede, accompany, and follow overt exchange. The term includes verbal, nonverbal, and environmentally oriented behaviors, all of which also have substantive and affective/emotional components. (5) The first two chapters of this book were focused on key ideas and anecdotal notions which give rise to our interest in social penetration processes. In it, Altman and Taylor also outlined general assumptions about personality structure that are implicit to this theory. The next two parts to the book after this discussed properties of the social penetration process as well as situational, individual and environmental differences in the theory. According to Altman and Taylor, there are a number of ways to group individual characteristics, but the literature readily falls into the following classes: (1) personality characteristics, (2) demographic-biographical characteristics, and (3) sociocultural characteristics. (145).
C. Arthur VanLear addresses Social Penetration Theory in his article Self-Disclosure Reciprocity: The Formation of Social Relationships. In his article, he discusses changes in a persons disclosure over time. VanLear's article investigated three different levels of self-disclosure (public, semiprivate, private-personal) in the social penetration process. He explains how in Social Penetration's simplest form, the theory views relationships as progressing through ever increasing breadth (amount) and depth of self-disclosure, though lower levels of disclosure and depth of penetration may vary. (300).
The most important discussion that was brought up in this article was what actually ends up changing in these three different levels of self-disclosure over time.
