Social Exchange Theory

Central Assumptions

Human beings need resources to survive. To facilitate meeting their needs, humankind learned to directly exchange resources or distribute a pool of [Page 895]resources among members of a social system. When acquiring resources, individuals enact behaviors that have proved successful in the past and that they expect will result in benefits in the current context or in the future. Hence, they are self-interested. To reduce the likelihood of exploitation, social systems develop norms or rules that prescribe how resources should be exchanged or distributed. Direct exchanges (e.g., doing favors) are guided by a norm of reciprocity that dictates that receiving a resource obligates one to return a benefit and until reciprocity occurs, the receiver of a resource is obligated to be respectful and supportive of the giver. Distribution of resources within a social system (e.g., employee salaries) is governed by rules that identify the basis upon which resources should be allocated (e.g., relative contribution, need, status, equality), the procedures used to determine the distribution (e.g., individuals should have voice in the decision making), and how the distribution is announced (e.g., decision makers should fully explain their actions in a sensitive fashion). These conventions increase feelings of deservingness, and when they are violated, individuals perceive that they have been treated unfairly and try to restore fairness or seek resources elsewhere. When exchanges have been successful, stable exchange relationships and social networks are formed. Stability alters the importance of exchange norms (e.g., meeting needs becomes more important than reciprocity), and norm deviations are tolerated to a greater degree.

Communication Implications

Just as the capacity for resource exchange developed as humankind evolved, so the capacity for language evolved as a means for facilitating exchanges. There is a natural connection, then, between social exchange and communication. Indeed, SET has implications for understanding aspects of interaction.

First, interaction can be viewed as a means of exchanging symbolic resources. Individuals have cognitive filters that are used to translate actions into resources. Hence, resources are symbolic representations of the behaviors that occur during an interaction. Resources include love, status, information, services, goods, and money. When interacting, individuals can perceive that they have exchanged resources (e.g., compliments increase one's status) or have had resources taken away (e.g., insults diminish one's status). Interaction can reflect positive (mutual compliments) or negative reciprocity (mutual insults), and resources can appropriately be exchanged for similar, but not identical resources. In some cases, individuals differ with regard to what resources were exchanged as well as whether positive or negative reciprocity occurred.

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