Social Exchange Theory Flashcards
Social Exchange Theory - SET.
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.
Who proposed the theory?
John Thibault and Harold Kelley (1959).
SET claims that…
Behaviour in relationships reflects the economic assumptions of exchange.
Minimax Principle.
We try to minimise losses and maximise gains.
There are 2 ways in which we measure the profit in a romantic relationship.
Comparison Level (CL). Comparison Level for Alternatives (CLalt).
CL.
The amount of reward that you believe you deserve to get.
It develops out of our experiences of previous relationships which feed into our expectations of the current one; also influenced by social norms that determine what is widely considered, within a culture, to be a reasonable level of reward.
Low CL.
Low self-esteem and they’ll therefore be satisfied with gaining just a small profit from a relationship.
CLalt.
Provides a wider context for our current relationship.
SET predicts that we will stay in our current relationship only so long as we believe it is more rewarding than the alternatives.
According to Steve Duck (1994), the CLalt we adopt will depend on the state of our current relationship.
If the costs of our current relationship outweigh the rewards, then the alternatives become more attractive.
SET concerns the 4 stages through which relationships develop.
Sampling stage, bargaining stage, commitment stage, institutionalisation stage.
Sampling Stage.
We explore the rewards and costs of social exchange by experimenting with them in our own relationships, or by observing others doing so.
Bargaining Stage.
Marks the beginning of a relationship, when romantic partners start exchanging various rewards and costs, negotiating and 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 increase and costs lessen.
Institutionalisation Stage.
The partners are now settled down because the norms of the relationship, in terms of rewards and costs, are firmly established.
Limitation: SET deals with concepts that are vague and hard to quantify.
Rewards and costs have been defined superficially in research in order to measure them. But real-world psychological rewards and costs are subjective and harder to define.
For example most ppl would consider ‘having your partner’s loyalty’ to be rewarding. But rewards and costs vary a lot from one person to another - even ‘having loyalty’ is not a reward for everyone. The concept of comparison levels is especially problematic. It is unclear what the values of CL and CLalt must be before dissatisfaction threatens a relationship.
This means that the theory is difficult to test in a valid way.
Limitation: SET’s claim that dissatisfaction arises only after a relationship stops being ‘profitable’.
According to SET, we become dissatisfied when we conclude that the costs of the relationship outweigh its rewards and/or that the alternatives are more attractive.
But Michael Argyle (1987) argued that we don’t monitor costs and rewards, or consider alternatives, until after we are dissatisfied. When we are satisfied with a relationship and committed to it, we do not even notice potentially attractive alternatives.
This suggests that considering costs/alternatives is caused by dissatisfaction rather than the reverse (dissatisfaction causes a person to consider costs/alternatives).
