The Social Exchange and Choice Framework - PART 2

Variations

We have been following Nye's (1979) version of exchange theory, but
it is important to note the diversity within exchange theories. We

FAMILY 'THEORIES                                         Social Exchange and Choice    47

classify the many variants on the basis of whether they are microsocial or macrosocial. You may recall that a microsocial theory includes the assumption that the individual is the active unit of analysis, whereas in macrosocial theories the active unit of analysis is the social group or institution. Although all theorists would like to think that they have successfully bridged the chasm between micro- and macroperspectives, there are in reality few theories for which one can confidently make such a claim. Individual exchange theories usually involve simply adding up all the individual motivations and calling that group motivation or developing a "great man" theory whereby one actor is responsible for social change and therefore only one motive need be analyzed (Homans, 1967). Macroexchange theories examine the exchanges between groups and the resulting social soli­darity and alliance formation. Individuals are largely lost in the larger social group and in most ways unidentifiable and unrecoverable as part of an explanation.

MICROEXCHANGE THEORIES

In our characterization of exchange theory, we have followed the microsocial perspective associated with Nye (1979), Levinger (1982), Lewis and Spanier (1979), Sabatelli (1988), Thibaut and Kelley (1959), and Sabtelli and Shehan (1993). There are other variants of this microsocial perspective, but these have not been developed as family theories. For example, Coleman (1990) and Hechter (1987) have both authored variations on a type of utilitarianism referred to as rational choice theory. Both of these authors take the individual as the basic unit of analysis and attempt to construct macrosocial appli­cations through a notion that some rewards can only be achieved by groups and social organization. There have been attempts at applying parts of the Coleman approach to the study of the family using the concept of "social capital" (e.g., Teachman, Paasch, & Carver, 1997). This is a concept added to the concepts of human and economic capi­tal that evolved from an earlier work by the Nobel-prize-winning economist Gary Becker (1981), whose work A Treatise on the Family presented a rational actor economic theory of the family. Becker (1981) and his followers have met with considerable criticism that their approach is both too focused on economic motivation and too individualistic. Despite these criticisms, economic theories of the family and family behaviors such as mate selection and divorce tend to be widespread in the economic literature. In addition, following the pioneering work of Kahneman and Tversky (1979) on the seeming irrationality of human choices, there has been and continues to be critical questioning of the ideas of "choice" and "rationality" within microeconomics and psychology (Khaneman & Tversky, 1984; Laibson & Zeckhauser, 1998). We have more to say about these criticisms of exchange theories in the next section.

Another example of a microexchange variant is the theoretical work of Emerson (1976), dealing with the relative balance, or ratio, of rewards in social relationships. His unit of analysis is the relationship rather than the individual. His microsocial approach might be suitable to the study of the family, but there has as .yet not been any research applications of his work directed specifically at studying families.

One of the more important variants of exchange theory used to study family, relationships is equity theory. Although equity theory is directly derived from exchange theory propositions, it contains the additional proposition that fair exchanges are more profitable to relationships than are unfair exchanges. If A and B are in an unfair relationship, then the social norm of reciprocity is not maintained, and the relationship is likely to be discontinued by one of its members. Thus, whenever a relationship provides profitable outcomes, it is essential for the maintenance of the relationship that exchanges be equitable. One can immediately see how equity might be applied to exchanges between marital partners and in family relations. Indeed, family scholars have used equity theory to study such longer-term family relationships (e.g., Scanzoni, 1972; Sexton & Perlman, 1989; Walster & Walster, 1978). It is interesting to note that several inves­tigators of equity in marriage (e.g., Pina & Bengtson, 1993; Sexton & Perlman, 1989) have concluded that, at best, equity appears to have restricted explanatory value for marital relations.

MACROEXCHANGE THEORIES

As we said in our introductory remarks to this chapter, we are mainly concerned with presenting the microsocial exchange perspec­tive, because that is the perspective generally applied to the study of the family. We do not want to leave the impression, however, that macrosocial exchange theorists have totally ignored the study of the family. You may have noted that our previous discussions of micro-exchange theories focus mainly on the individual's choices and decision making. Certainly such decision making can be applied to decisions such as the selection of a mate or the choice between divorce and stay­ing married. Macroexchange theories tend to be focused more on the group or organization, however.

The transition from a microexchange to a macroexchange per­spective is achieved by the addition of several concepts to those we

riEURIES                                         Social Exchange and Choice     9•7

have already reviewed. First, most macroexchange theorists identify two types of exchanges: restricted and generalized exchanges. Restricted exchanges take place at one point in time and involve little trust. For example, when you buy something in a store, you hand money to the salesperson, who then gives you the item you have selected. On the other hand, generalized exchanges take place over a longer period of time and therefore require more trust. An example of a generalized exchange is lending money to a friend or relative and trusting that repayment will be made at some future date. The trust required in generalized exchanges is buttressed by the norm of reciprocity as discussed above in regard to equity theory. That indivi­duals find the relationships in a family group profitable is in part because the family group maintains profitable exchanges with other social organizations such as schools, churches, and the economy. The essence of macroexchange perspectives is the view that these group and organizational exchanges are more central than individual deci­sion making.

In structural exchange theories, the individual's choices are viewed as being determined by the macroexchanges between group and organi­zations. Note that this is just the opposite of the view in microexchange theories such as rational choice theory that the individual's decisions determine the group's exchanges.

Perhaps the best example of macroexchange thinking applied to the family is provided by the work of the French structuralist Claude Levi-Strauss (1969), who developed a theory that the fabric of soci­eties is constructed by norms that require generalized social exchanges between groups. At the heart of these generalized exchanges are the exchanges between kin groups and clans. Prescriptive mating norms require the formation of alliances between groups through the exchange of mates. For example, in a moiety, or two-clan system, if you are a member of the Bear clan and want to form a political, social, and economic alliance with the Eagle clan, you could create a mating rule such as, Bear women must marry Eagle men. The strongest expression of this alliance rule would be a totemic incest taboo, for example, forbidding an Eagle man to marry an Eagle woman. Levi­Strauss's (1969) work has been criticized as not being applicable to voluntary mate selection systems such as our own, but his work has led to some interesting applications, such as Harrison White's (1963) book examining mathematical models of kinship. In general, the more macrosocial utilitarian theories have not been applied to the family as a unit of analysis but rather to larger kinship groups such as clans. As a result, North American family scholars have tended to favor the more microsocial variants of utilitarian thinking.

It should be useful to remember that exchanges need not be dyadic (between two people). In groups with three or more members, such as most families, the interests of all members need to be accom­modated so that no member's personal interest dominates. Also, in groups with three or more members, the exchanges may be indirect. For example, I may help my wife, who helps her mother, and her mother may then do something nice for me because I helped her daughter. Or, various groups of in-laws may take turns hosting holi­day celebrations. And, as we know from even casually thinking about inheritance patterns, the accumulated benefits of one generation may be passed along to the next generation ad infinitum. I may be eligible for inheritance not by promising to pay back my parents, but by assuring my parents that I won't break the chain and will pass on inheritance myself to my parents' grandchildren (Ekeh, 1974).

Empirical Applications

One way to understand a theory is to apply it to some examples. In this section, we apply exchange theory to two areas of research in the study of the family: divorce and sexual relations.

DIVORCE

Over the past half century, divorce in North America has increased dramatically. The past two decades have seen a slowing and stabilizing of divorce rates, but the risk of divorce is sometimes estimated to be as high as one divorce out of every two marriages. Divorce means difficult and painful adjustments for children as well as the husband and wife in a family. It is not surprising, then, that the explanation of why partners separate and divorce continues to occupy the attention of a significant number of family scholars.

Among the many possible explanations of divorce, exchange the­ory appears to offer one of the more promising roads to understand­ing. Briefly, according to exchange theory, each spouse analyzes the marriage by using the two comparison levels. First, a spouse compares profits relative to other marriages. If he or she feels deprived relative to other marriages, then the marital satisfaction of that spouse would be low, creating a motive for choosing separation and divorce. As Lewis and Spanier (1979) have aptly pointed out, however, many unhappy spouses remain married because of other constraints. Exchange theorists view these other constraints as costs associated with divorce. In the second comparison level, the spouse calculates the

ruvill- i i rir,uititS                                Social Exchange and Choice        31

rewards and costs (profit) associated with possibilities other than marriage, for example, being single and divorced. Among the possible costs to this alternative would be child support, alimony, peer dis­approval, the church's disapproval, kinship group disapproval, sexual deprivation, loss of interaction with one's children, role loss, and so on. Some of the possible rewards might be finding a more compatible partner, freeing family members from a confrontational and conflict-ridden home life, and freeing oneself from family responsibilities. The computation of the perceived alternatives to marriage depends on a diversity of variables, such as the gender ratio of the community in which one lives and the ages of one's children.

George Levinger (1965, 1966) assessed the likelihood of divorce in terms of "attractions," "barriers," and "alternatives." If attractions to one's spouse and barriers to divorce are both low, and if alternatives are attractive, then divorce is more likely. Because all three factors are important, it is not sufficient to explain divorce in terms of any one of them alone. This application should remind us that it is important to know if the subjective calculations of both partners must be taken into account. Is divorce more likely if only one partner perceives a "poor deal" by staying married, or must both partners be getting a "poor deal"? In some societies, it may not be possible for one partner to end the relationship unilaterally if the other partner is unwilling to do so. Thus, when applying the exchange perspective to divorce, we need to specify the conditions under which miserable spouses can be expected to stay married.

One of the major stumbling blocks for successfully applying this exchange theory explanation to divorce is that the rewards and costs in the two comparison levels seem to change over the life span of the individual. This is evident in the paradoxical finding pointed out by White and Booth (1991) that the great bulk of divorces (30%-40%) occur in the first S years of marriage, the very point in the life span that is associated with the highest marital satisfaction. Furthermore, as marital satisfaction declines over the life course, so does the risk of divorce. It seems a paradox that we should find the greatest number of divorces when marriages are the happiest! However, the compari­son levels for happiness are highest early in a relationship, and it is easier to become disappointed when expectations are not fulfilled.

White and Booth (1991) explain this paradox by proposing that as marriages proceed through the spouses' life course, the importance of marital happiness tends to decline; in addition, longer-duration marriages have relatively high costs for dissolution (barriers). White and Booth (1991) proposed that longer marriages with high costs for dissolution require high levels of marital unhappiness to propel spouses to divorce, whereas early marriages with few costs to divorce require greater levels of marital happiness to keep them together. Thus, the life course changes in salience and the ratio of rewards and costs explain the paradox. Lewis and Spanier's (1979) model of marital stability has been challenged by a competing exchange model offered by Thomas and Kleber (1981), who propose that regardless of marital quality, marital stability will be high when there are few alternatives and high barriers to dissolution. White and Booth (1991) feel that in addition to solving the paradox between high divorce rates and marital satisfaction, their data resolve the debate in favor of Lewis and Spanier's (1979) model. We believe grounds remain for further research on these competing models.

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SEXUAL BEHAVIOR

Our second application of exchange theory is drawn from proposi­tions presented by Nye (1979) regarding sexual behavior, although we focus not on the formal propositions but on what the explanation would look like. But first, what is it that we want to explain about gender differences in sexual behavior? In most, if not all, cultures, sex seems more actively sought after by males than females. Although there may exist a biological answer to why this is the case (see Chapter 8), most authors assume that the biological drive is malleable in how it is satisfied. Furthermore, many of the behaviors that could be associated with a higher sex drive in one gender, such as prostitution, are usually labeled social rather than biological problems.

Nye (1979) argues that males are more likely to exchange rewards (especially money or marriage) for sexual access. Because exchange theory is essentially a motivational theory, Nye posits that sex is more profitable for males than it is for females. Nye is not assuming a more vital sex drive for males than females. Such an assumption would place the entire explanation on the shoulders of the biological impor­tance, or salience, of sex for males over females. As a social scientist, Nye seems to assume that the biological drive for the two genders is equal and he therefore searches for a social explanation.

First, Nye argues that in all cultures women take the major respon­sibility for the children they bear. Unwanted pregnancy is thus more costly to women than it is to men. Even in the most modern societies, paternity is still difficult and expensive to prove. Contraceptives can be used to prevent the potential outcome of unwanted pregnancy, but contraception also is usually left to the female partner. These are real and potentially high costs to intercourse. A second differential is that men for the most part report better outcomes from sex than do

women. Men are more likely to achieve orgasm than are women, and women are more likely to experience frustration from sexual relations. The result of these differential costs and rewards is that relative to women, men, in general, find that sex offers greater rewards and fewer costs. As a result, men must either have sexual relations with those who find it as rewarding as they do (homosexuality) or they must increase the rewards for women. Nye says that the usual ways in which these rewards are increased for women is for men to offer either money or the probability of marriage. Other rewards, such as status and secu­rity, might be more salient at various points in the life course. Nye's application of exchange has great scope and breadth. For example, it could explain female adornment as a sexual attractor that functions to increase the value of the exchange. Because married persons have already struck a bargain, we would expect much less difference between men and women in postmarital sexual relations. This prediction is consistent with the fact that a difference of less than 10% exists between male and female extramarital affairs (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983). Furthermore, we can make some general predictions, such as that when the costs of contraception (inconvenience and medical complications) are equally distributed among both genders and sexual knowledge is shared among both genders so that both genders enjoy the same level of outcome, then we would expect less sexual bargaining with marriage and money. Keep in mind that Nye's (1979) theory remains to be tested and must be shown to provide a better explanation than competing theories, but this example does illustrate exchange theory's potential breadth of explanation.

 

Implications for Intervention Exchange theory has numerous implications for family policy, treat­ment, and intervention. We can only sketch a few of these to give the flavor of the richness of this theory for application to family issues. One of the most influential applications of the theory is in the area of intervention and prevention in marital and parent—child interactions. This application has largely been constructed on the view that parent—child and husband—wife relations represent behavioral exchanges. Gerald Patterson and his associates at the Oregon Research Institute pioneered this approach (Patterson & Reid, 1970). Currently, many scholars and practitioners use the behavioral exchange approach. For example, Bagarozzi (1993) suggests that in designing behavioral contracts with spouses, therapists should focus on increasing positive or rewarding behaviors and decreasing negative behavioral exchanges.

Clearly, such an intervention would increase the profitability of the marital relationship. Markman and his colleagues developed the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program for enhancing marriages and decreasing divorce based on the notion that distressed couples seem to enter a reciprocal exchange of negative behaviors (e.g., Renick, Blumberg, & Markman, 1992). Although these authors view their program as empirically based rather than founded on exchange theory, the basic interpretive notion of behavioral exchanges remains true to the exchange perspective. Another area of application for the theory is in the area of family policy. Haveman and Wolfe (1994), following Becker (1981), take a human capital, or rational choice, approach to child welfare and educa­tion 0-11'4. They view parents, schools, and government as making investments in the human capital of our children. To the extent that we invest unwisely or in a miserly fashion, we reap the failures of suc­ceeding generations and social problems such as crime and economic dependence. Haveman and Wolfe (1994) review the relative costs of geographic moves, parental separation, and several other variables on the eventual success of children. These costs are seen as our inability to invest wisely in the human capital of tomorrow's generation and society. Haveman and Wolfe's Succeeding Generations is one of the clearest applications of economic exchange principles to the interpre­tation of family data and the framing of family policy. Critiques and Discussion Our focus in this section is on the criticisms commonly directed at microexchange theories. We recognize that each of the criticisms discussed is more applicable to some microsocial variants than others. Our central target must be the general notions presented above and principally derived from Nye (1979). One caveat should be mentioned: No social theory solves all the problems we raise in our critiques. Our criticism is not aimed at convincing the theorist or the student that one theory is better than another. Rather, these critiques are intended to illuminate the choices we make in adopting a theoretical stance and to point out the 'areas that are in need of more creative thinking by the next generation of scholars. As we mentioned at the beginning, microsocial exchange theories are usually based on methodological individualism, the assumption that the individual is the appropriate unit to study to gain an under­standing of the family. As far as we know, there has never been a definition of the family as simply an aggregation of individuals. Yet,

 

when we take the individual's ratio of rewards and costs as the basis of our theory about families, we are assuming that the aggregation of individual members is the family. Theoretically, this would make the family no different from any other collection of actors. Yet the family has characteristics that seem unlike other social groups. For most of us, our families are lifelong social groups that we enter by birth and leave by death. Our families have roles that are unlike work group roles, such as filial obligations toward the parents. And our families have biological and social relations (blood and marriage) that are unlike those in any other social group. Thus, to assume that individual actors are interchangeable and that families as social groups can be explained by the motivation of individuals seems problematic.

Explaining social order poses a problem for all the forms of utilitarianism. If we view explanation as emanating from individual motivation, then it is usually difficult to demonstrate how we developed social norms and social institutions. Although most microsocial theorists include a discussion of the norm of reciprocity (you should help those that help you), it is much less clear how this norm is derived from individual self-interest. In addition, in analyzing costs and rewards, theorists readily accept the given nature of social norms and institutions without indicating how these are explained by the theory. For instance, in weighing the rewards and costs of not wear­ing clothing on a hot summer day, you automatically take into account formal norms (laws) and informal norms. Most of you recognize that no matter how rewarding you might find going without clothing, there are strong formal and informal norms that constrain your behavior. The major answer utilitarians have given this question regarding social order is known as the social contract. There are many variants of this idea, but basically it involves the assumption that individuals band together and form a social order so as to have security of person and property. This social contract implies that some individual freedom is relinquished so that order may be maintained. But this view, although admitting the importance and power of social institutions, largely begs the question of how these social institutions evolve and change. Clearly, most of you have no recollection of relinquishing some of your freedoms in exchange for order. Rather, you were socialized by institutions to be on time, to behave in certain ways, and to expect formal and informal sanctions if you transgressed the social order.

Another problematic area for microsocial exchange theory is altruistic behavior. Many times we see (and praise) behaviors that seem to be characterized by the individual giving up rewards and suffering costs so that others may prosper. Some simple examples are 

a soldier giving up his or her life in combat or a mother running into a burning house to save her child. Exchange theorists would point out that this is a problem of attribution or inference. All we have really observed is the behavior (and not the motive), and we incorrectly attribute an other-directedness to an act that was actually calculated to yield profit. Thus, the mother is acting in the least costly way if she regards the death of her child as more costly than the personal risk she incurs by her attempt to save the child. The soldier who refuses to fight faces court martial, humiliation, and.shame. On the other hand, critics might argue that these people are not acting rationally at all,

but emotionally.

The—assumption of a rational actor provides further difficulties, especially in the study of the family. The family is often considered a social group characterized by intense loyalty and emotions. Most police officers will tell you that domestic quarrels are often emotional and potentially explosive situations because of their irrational nature. Furthermore, the institution of marriage has long been viewed as till death do us part, which flies in the face of the exchange view until profitability declines. And, of course, children do not choose their parents, nor is the family they enter representative of the voluntaristic ideal of unfettered choice needed for the optimization of profit. Thus, it seems natural to question whether the assumption of rational actors calculating their most profitable choice makes sense in the context of

the family.

One of the most basic questions in the study of the family is "Why do people have children?" Exchange theory should treat this choice as bearing profit for the parents. But as most economists and parents will attest, children are expensive. Although there are many ways to estimate the costs of raising one child (to age 17, without advanced education, etc.), inflation-adjusted estimates for raising a middle-class child today are usually above a quarter of a million dollars. Further­more, the decline in the norms regarding filial care of the aged, coupled with social security and institutional care, make returns to the parents in old age unlikely. Nye (1979) attempts to answer this ques­tion by saying there is a form of intergenerational norm of reciprocity. You feel an obligation to pass on what your parent did for you to the succeeding generation. But people who are childless by choice can pocket the quarter of a million dollars and seemingly feel little remorse in not passing on the favor. It may be that having children is not a rational decision.

There is a problem of weighing costs and rewards. We have pre­viously mentioned that the salience, or importance, of rewards and costs must be examined to understand a choice. Of course, theorists

FAMILY THEORIES

would like to believe that some costs and rewards have roughly similar value across actors. If this were not so, then it would be unlikely that we could develop successful microeconomics. Even the symbols and meaning associated with economic units may be unstable, however. In our society, there are symbols of wealth and success. Increasingly, both the wealthy and the indebted may attain these symbols. These symbols may vary across cohorts and periods. We know of a very wealthy man who insisted on driving himself in a 10-year-old vehicle. His offspring all had fancier new cars with chauffeurs. And the mean­ing of rewards and costs changes more drastically once we move our comparisons to other cultures. In Tikopeia, a man's wealth was based on the number of wives he had. But number of wives did not just reflect material well-being. Daughters could be traded for wives, and therefore daughters were a means to wealth and status.

Turner (1991) argues that exchange theory can be accused of tautological reasoning. In essence, a tautology exists when terms are all defined by one another and there is no possibility of disproving the statements. Turner argues that reward is defined as that which is valued by the person. The choice that a person makes is the maxi­mization of profit. Thus, all actions are rewarding and the reason we undertake an action is that it brings rewards. For example, we may ask, "Why did Tiffany get married?" Some exchange theorists would answer that Tiffany got married because it was a more profitable choice than remaining single. But we may ask, "How do the exchange theorists know that this maximized Tiffany's profits over remaining single?" If the exchange theorists responded that we know because people always choose those behaviors that maximize their profits, then we have just completed a tautological circle. Turner believes that this circular logic is often found in deductive theories. We do not dis­agree that deductive systems can be self-referential and closed systems of definitions, but we do disagree that deductive scientific theories are ever like this. Indeed, the hallmark of a scientific theory (as opposed to a theory in general) is that some of its concepts are tied to empiri­cal measures. We may define force (f) as f•ma, but we have standard empirical measures for mass (m) and acceleration (a). A problem with utilitarian theories is that they often seem to lack this mooring to the concrete empirical measurement system.

Conclusion

Despite the criticisms, utilitarian, or exchange, theory is one of the
most popular social science theories applied to the family. One reason

Social Exchange and Choice                                                                                          57

for this popularity is that exchange theories typically have great scope and breadth. The notions of reward, cost, and profit are sufficiently abstract and content free that the researcher may fill in the content from any number of contexts. The assumptions of rational actors calculating profit provides some problems, as does the inadequacy of the theory for explaining how and why institutional and normative constraints operate on choices.

Suggested Readinks

Haveman, R., & Wolfe, B. (1994). Succeeding generations. New York: Russell Sage. This is a ojahisticated but very readable application of microexchange economics to an extremely important area of discourse.

Sabatelli, R. M., & Shehan, C. L. (1993). Exchange and resource theories. In P. Boss, W. Doherty, R. LaRossa, W. Schumm, & S. Steinmetz (Eds.), Sourcebook of family theories and methods: A contextual approach (pp. 385-411). New York: Plenum.

This is a good general introduction. The authors introduce the macro—micro distinction as "collectivism—individualism" and do not demarcate the theories quite as sharply as we do in this regard.