Assumptions
The assumptions that SET makes about human nature include the following:
- Humans seek rewards and avoid punishments.
- Humans are rational beings.
- The standards that humans use to evaluate costs and rewards vary over time and from person to person.
The assumptions SET makes about the nature of relationships include the following:
- Relationships are interdependent.
- Relational life is a process.
The prisoner's dilemma is a widely used example in game theory that attempts to illustrate why or how two individuals may not cooperate with each other, even if it is in their best interest to do so. It demonstrates that while cooperation would give the best outcome, people might nevertheless act selfishly.
Social Exchange Theory is a theoretical explanation for organizational citizenship behavior. This study examines a model of clear leadership and relational building between head and teachers as antecedents, and organizational citizenship behavior as a consequence of teacher–school exchange. All relationships involve exchanges although the balance of this exchange is not always equal. We cannot achieve our goals alone so as humans we have to sometimes become actors. In the world today we see actors as unemotional people but that is not the case once we reach our goals in the end.
Read more about this topic: Social Exchange Theory
Famous quotes containing the word assumptions:
“What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“All of the assumptions once made about a parent’s role have been undercut by the specialists. The psychiatric specialists, the psychological specialists, the educational specialists, all have mystified child development. They have fostered the idea that understanding children and promoting their intellectual well-being is too complex for mothers and requires the intervention of experts.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“Assumptions of male superiority are as widespread and deep rooted and every bit as crippling to the woman as the assumptions of white supremacy are to the Negro.... this is no more a man’s world than it is a white world.”
—Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, African American civil rights organization. SNCC Position Paper (Women in the Movement)