Theories of romantic relationships: Social exchange theory Flashcards
who proposed this theory?
Thibault and Kelley (1959)
what is social exchange theory?
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 relationships.
examples of rewards and costs
rewards - companionship, sex, emotional support
costs - stress, time, energy
opportunity cost
A relationship also incurs opportunity cost, which is where your investment of time and energy in your current relationship means using resources that you cannot invest elsewhere.
how can we measure profit in a romantic relationship?
comparison level
comparison level for alternatives
Comparison level (CL)
Comparison level measures the profit in a romantic relationship. CL is 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. Our expectations are also influenced by social norms that determine what is widely considered to be a reasonable level of reward. Over time, we experience more relationships and more social norms, so our CL changes as we acquire more data to set it by. We consider a relationship worth pursuing if CL is high.
how does CL link with self-esteem?
Someone with low self-esteem will have a low CL and be satisfied with gaining just a small profit, or even a loss. Someone with higher self-esteem will believe they are worth a lot more.
Comparison level for alternatives (CLalt)
CLalt measures the profit in a romantic relationship. It provides a wider context for our current relationship. SET predicts that we stay in our current relationship only so long as we believe it is more rewarding than the alternatives. Duck (1994) suggests the CLalt we adopt will depend on the state of our current relationship. So if the costs of our current relationship outweigh the rewards, then alternatives become more attractive.
what are the 4 stages of relationship development?
sampling stage
bargaining stage
commitment stage
institutionalisation stage
sampling stage
explore the rewards and costs by experimenting in our own relationships or by observing others
bargaining stage
marks the beginning of a relationship. Partners start exchanging various rewards and costs, negotiating and identifying what is most profitable.
commitment stage
the sources of costs and rewards become more predictable as time goes on. 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.
Evaluation of social exchange theory (brief)
strength - support, Kurdeck, however ignores equity
weakness - claims dissatisfaction only arises after a relationship stops being profitable
weakness - vague concepts
strength of SET
there is support for aspects of SET from research studies. Kurdeck asked gay, lesbian and heterosexual couples to complete questionnaires measuring relationship commitment and SET variables. He found those partners who were the most committed also perceived the most rewards and fewest costs and viewed alternatives as relatively unnattractive. This was the first study to demonstrate that the main SET concepts that predict commitment individually have an effect. These findings match predictions from SET, strongly confirming the validity of the theory in gay, lesbian and heterosexual partners. However, studies into SET ignore the crucial factor of equity. There is much research support for the role of equity in relationships, and that what matters isnt just the balance of rewards and costs, but the partners’ perceptions that this is fair. The neglect of equity means that SET is a limited explanation which cannot account for a significant proportion of the research findings on relationships.
weaknesses of SET
a limitation of SET is its claim that dissatisfaction only arises after a relationship stops being profitable. According to SET we become dissatisfied when we conclude that the costs of the relationship outweigh the rewards and the alternatives are more attractive. But Argyle argued that we don’t monitor cost 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 cost/alternatives is caused by dissatisfaction rather than the reverse.
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 people would consider loyalty to be rewarding. But rewards and costs vary a lot from one person to another – even 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 the theory is difficult to test in a valid way.
