The Breakfast Club: Social Penetration Theory

Wherever we go we must communicate to other people in order to make relationships. There are several concepts and theories that go into interpersonal relationships. In the movie, “The Breakfast Club” there is multiple situations where we see the development of relationships. There are five students that are stuck in detention for eight hours. The five students are named Bender, Claire, Andrew, Alison, and Brian; they are most commonly known by their labels in the school: the criminal, the princess, the athlete, the brain, and the basket case. They would never associate regularly but being stuck in detention, they begin to communicate, self-disclose, and build new relationships. The relationships that are made in “The Breakfast Club” demonstrate …show more content…
When we communicate with others, we must self-disclose often enough to develop an interpersonal relationship. We can connect well with them and create a strong relationship. There was no talking in the beginning of the movie. If there was talking, it would be arguing or saying rude, and mean things. In the final moments, we could clearly see how close they became because of the frequency of the students self-disclosing to each other. The Social Penetration Theory is very efficient in this movie. Once the five students began to self-disclose, their relationship grew more. As their communication grew breadth, depth, and frequency helped them feel more comfortable and relaxed. Their friendship would have never been developed without their self-disclosure to each other. There are three factors that influence relationship development; they are proximity, attractiveness, and similarity. Proximity is how close one is to others. With them being stuck in a room by themselves for eight hours, the proximity affected their relationship because they had no one else to talk to. They got to really interact, self-disclose, and learn about each other. If they were not in proximity, they would have never talked to each other in …show more content…
Their relationship was created because of the Social Penetration Theory, and the three factors of the relationship development concept. They even had conflicts that were based off hurtful messages which resulted into emotional flooding. What I learned from this assignment was how truly relationships are created from. I learned that I need to self-disclose more to make my relationships go deeper. The most important thing I learned was never to judge anyone. Peoples “labels” are not what they really are. They are usually the complete opposite and might have something in common with you. I learned that I need to give everyone a chance and communicate with anyone that I