L5 - Theories Of Romantic Relationships: Social Exchange Theory Flashcards
What is the social exchange theory
- proposed by Thibault and Kelley (1959) & is a theory of how relationships form and develop.
- an economic theory of romantic relationships
- It assumes that romantic partners act out of self-interest in exchanging rewards and costs.
- A satisfying and committed relationship is maintained when rewards exceed costs and potential alternatives are less attractive than the current relationship.
What is the theory based on?
- based on the economic assumptions of exchange where we minimise losses and maximise gains.
- We judge our satisfaction with a relationship in terms of the profit it yields, defined as the rewards minus the cost.
- as rewards and costs are very subjective depending on the outlook of the individual this means that a significant reward for one person might be seen as less valuable by another person.
- value of rewards and costs might well change over the course of the relationship
- Rewards include beneficial things such as companionship, sex and emotional support.
- Although a romantic relationship is not always, ‘a bed of roses’ and can involve negative emotions too.
What did Blau say?
Blau (1964) who spoke in the economic language of relationships, he said relationships can be
‘expensive so costs include time, stress, energy and compromise etc. He further mentioned how a relationship incurs another cost - opportunity. Your investment of time and energy in your current relationship means using resources that you cannot invest elsewhere.
Who spoke in the economic language of relationships?
Blau (1964)
2 ways profit of a romantic relationship is measured?
- Comparison level (CL)
- Comparison level for alternative (CLalt)
Comparison level (CL)
- amount of reward that you believe you deserve to get.
- It develops out of our experiences of our previous relationships which feed into the expectations of our current one.
- It is also influenced by social norms within a culture what is widely considered to be a reasonable level of reward.
- Experience with relationships allows us to change our CL, we consider that a relationship is worth pursuing if the CL is high.
- This is based on self-esteem - someone with a low self-esteem will be satisfied with gaining a very small profit (or even a loss) from a relationship whereas someone with a higher self-esteem will believe they are worth a lot more.
Comparison level for alternative (CLalt)
second measure of profit providing a wider context for our current relationship - in other words could we gain more profit from another relationship with less costs and more rewards? (or even being alone) in other words, ‘could I do better?’ or ‘is the grass greener elsewhere?’ Social exchange theory predicts that we will stay in our current relationship so long as we believe that it is more rewarding than alternatives.
Another feature of social exchange theory
- describes 4 stages in which relationships (and the social exchanges that underpin them) develop
The 4 stages
Sampling stage - we explore the rewards and costs of social exchange by experimenting in our own and observing others - this can also be the case for friendships too
Bargaining stage - this marks the beginning of a relationship, when romantic partners start exchanging various rewards & costs & negotiating & identifying what is most profitable
Commitment stage - as time goes on, the sources of costs and rewards become more predictable and the relationship becomes more stable as rewards increases and costs are less
Institutionalisation stage - partners now settled down because the rewards and costs in a relationship are firmly established.
Evaluation of SET
Strengths
- supporting evidence
- application to couples
weaknesses
- monitoring rewards & costs
- selfish
- hard to define
- cross-culture validity
- limited sample
Supporting evidence
One strength is that Gottman (1992) found evidence that supports the social exchange theory.
He found that individuals in unsuccessful marriages frequently report a lack of positive behaviour exchanges with their partner, and an excess of negative exchanges. In successful marriages where the relationship is happy, the ratio or positive to negative exchanges is 5:1, but in unsuccessful marriages the ratio is 1:1. This study therefore fully supports SET as it shows how rewards and costs are an important part of a romantic relationship.
Application to couples
Another strength of SET is its application to couples who are having relationship problems - Integrated couples therapy by Jacobson (2000) helps partners to break negative patterns of behaviours and to decrease negative exchanges, whilst increasing positive exchanges. Thus SET is successful in helping couples to reconcile. In other words it teaches couples how to maximise rewards and decrease costs in order for the relationship to be more satisfying for both partners.
Monitoring rewards & costs
However, Argyle challenges the social exchange theory. Argyle disagrees with the idea that people spend a great deal of time monitoring their relationship in terms of rewards and costs.
Argyle states that people only monitor rewards and costs once the relationship becomes dissatisfying. Duck agrees with Argyle and states that we only look at comparison levels in a relationship when we are dissatisfied, not when we are happy and the relationship is successful
Selfish
Furthermore, Blau would argue that human beings are selfish to think of relationship maintenance in terms of rewards and costs. The social exchange theory is rooted in the Behaviourist approach whereby the focus of relationship maintenance is about rewards and operant conditioning. However, some relationships have little rewards but many costs e.g. violent relationships, but they still continue. Therefore the cognitive approach might be able to explain the social exchange theory more accurately
Difficult to define
Research by Littlejohn (1989) found that it is very difficult to define what is a reward and what is a cost in a relationship and this might differ from one person to another. For example a
“cost” could be viewed as a reward to another person; an example could be having a child. The social exchange theory needs to carefully examine how individuals view and think about rewards and costs.
