Irwin Altman and Dalmus Taylor developed the "social penetration theory" to explain how relational closeness develops. They discuss a person's personality structure, how breadth and depth of self-disclosure is important and a rewards/costs system of closeness analysis.
This is the methodology that John Berg used to research the development of friendship between roommates at the University of California in Los Angeles. Berg went to residence halls and left volunteer sign-up sheets. 48 pairs of roommates signed up for the experiement. 24 pairs were male and 24 were female. Even though Berg felt that it was harder to analyze the process with same sex pairs, he still decided to use the roommates because of convenience in time schedules and availability. He conducted the test during the fall and spring quarters in one academic year, since time is of great importance during the process. The only thing the subjects knew was that they would be asked to fill out questionnaires on several occasions.
Six months later, the participants were contacted again to participate in the follow-up testing session. Only 39 pairs of roommates (20 male, 19 female) agreed to take part in the follow-up. *The final results would only be calculated from the pairs who participated in both sessions.The catagories under which Berg questioned the participants were as follows:
Liking and SatisfactionSelf-Disclosure
Equity
Reward
Comparison Level for Alternatives
At the end of the experiment, liking and satisfaction levels severely decreased from the fall quarter to the spring quarter. 59% of the roommates were not even planning on living together the next year. The results remained relatively unchanged for those who planned to continue living together.
A significant correlation between time and rewards was found to have an impact on the decision to remain roommates the following year. Those who decided to remain together reported an increase in the help (rewards) received from their roommate from the fall to spring quarter. Disclosure was also reported to significantly increase from fall to spring.
Time, however, was the most important factor leading to the increase in self-disclosure and the necessity of people in a relationship providing each other with desired benefits. The more time in between the questionnaires, the more self-disclosure occured between the roommates. People tend to self-disclose more information the longer the are together. Women, as consistantly viewed, were the sex to have more equitable relationships and are considered to be more socially responsive than men. This means that women tend to respond better to social situations where self-disclosure is a factor. This was the main force behind the success rate of the women roommates.
Interpretation
I found this article to be very informative with its research, but a little hard to follow. The reason for the article was to talk about the experiment conducted between the roommates, but it took over two pages to get to that. I did, however, find the information on the experiment to be very helpful in the explanation of social penetration. A lot of the statistics and numbers could have been left out of the article and I believe that I still would have understood the concept of the point he was trying to make. All of the statistics just confused me. If Berg would have just stuck to the points of the experiment I believe that the article would have been much easier to read. It is, however, an excellent source for the concepts of social penetration. Applying the theory to a situation that most students have gone through is a good way to help them understand the theory. We have probably all had a roommate at one time or another. Explaining the theory in these terms will help students to understand how and why we reach certain levels of intimacy with those roommates.
Reference: Berg, John. "Development of Friendship Between Roommates." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46 (1984): 346-56
Click here for information on Self-Disclosure. This article discusses self-disclosure, emotional openness, and effective communication. Explore the depths of the inner self.
Click here if you are interested in reading more on Friendship Development. Read an article by Robert B. Hays, George Washington University. This article discusses what friendship is and how it develops.
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