Social Exchange Theory - History

History

Social Exchange Theory was introduced in the 1960s by George Homans. After Homans founded the theory, many theorists such as Richard Emerson,John Thibaut, Harold Kelley and Peter Blau continued to write about the theory. John Thibaut and Harold Kelly focused their studies within the theory on the psychological concepts, the dyad and small group. Homans's primary concern within this field was focusing on the behavior of individuals when interacting with one another. He believed characteristics such as power, conformity, status, leadership and justice within social behavior was important to explain within the theory. Although there are various modes of exchange, Homans focused his studies on dyadic exchange.

Homans summarizes the system in three propositions Success, Stimulus, Deprivation-Satiation Proposition. 1. Success Proposition: when one finds they are rewarded for their actions they tend to repeat the action. 2. Stimulus Proposition-

Peter Blau focused his early writings on Social Exchange Theory more towards the economic and utilitarian perspective. Whereas Homans focused on reinforcement principles which believe individual's base their next social move on past experiences, Blau's utilitarian focus encouraged the theorist to look forward as in what they anticipated the reward would be in regards to their next social interaction. Blau felt that if individuals focused too much on the psychological concepts within the theory, they would refrain from learning the developing aspects of social exchange. Blau emphasized technical economic analysis whereas Homans concentrated more on the psychology of instrumental behavior.

Richard Emerson's early work on the theory intertwined with both Homans and Blau's ideas. From Homan's ideas, he believed Social Exchange Theory was based on reinforcement principles. According to Emerson, Exchange is not a theory but a framework of from which other theories can converge and compared to structural functionalism. Emerson's perspective was similar to Blau's since they both focused on the relationship power had with the exchange process. Emerson says that Social Exchange Theory is an approach in sociology that is described for simplicity as an economic analysis of noneconomic social situations. Exchange theory brings a quasi-economic more of analysis into those situations.