Criticism
- The scope of the theory is limited
- Theory not fully supported by data
- Highest reciprocity may occur at middle levels; may be cycles of disclosure and reserve
- Needs take account of gender (males less open)
- Disclosure can increase as relationship deteriorates
- Single comparison (CL) index too simplistic
- In close relationships, self-centeredness lessens
- Onion metaphor: sexual; disclosure is active, usually symmetrical; self is not simply revealed but is constructed
- The original theory did not account for gender differences in vulnerability, but later research concludes that males are less open than females.
Read more about this topic: Social Penetration Theory
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“Parents sometimes feel that if they don’t criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn’t make people want to change; it makes them defensive.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)