Social Behavior and Exchange
Few of the things that I appreciate while working in the public office is the complexity of social interactions to occur in the sphere of politics and society. The social behavior as elicited by the different actors in the locality (i.e barangay officials) — shares a collective notion, grounded on interest-realization.
The dual nature of human interaction is best characterized as “exchange”. Social relationships can be viewed in an economic metaphor (cost-benefit analysis) — on which humans choose behaviors that maximize their likelihood of meeting their self-interest in social situations. On the basis of rewards and differentiation, social exchange is considered as the core social process underlying relations between individuals, and within and/or between groups (Dillon, 2014). Grounded on the premise of economics and psychology, social exchange theory is developed and elaborated by among pioneering sociologists, George Homans and Peter Blau.
Despite having the same position on self-interest as a guide for social interaction, Homans and Blau provide two differing approaches in the analysis of social behavior (Calhoun et al, 2002). Homans rested his notion on social behavior as an “exchange”, drawing relevant concepts on behavioral psychology as influenced by B.F. Skinners’ operant conditioning (Ritzer, 2011). In his goal to explain how interaction creates a stable social order, Homans posits “exchange” as the elementary basis of all forms of social behavior. At the most basic level of social situations, actions are motivated by rewards and punishments; thus being elaborated into five propositions — (1) success, (2) stimulus, (3) value, (4) deprivation-satiation, and (5) aggression-approval (Ritzer, 2011).
Following Homan’s propositions exemplifying the kind of exchange relationship, some of my observations are central in the context of political situation. On community event/s, the “painom” culture is an implicit norm that is observed by the barangay officials, as a “reward” to the working committee (i.e tanods) after a day’s hard work. The officials are compelled to contribute certain amount so as to suffice the need for the exchange in the interaction. In the perspective of the person-other, this situation reflects the “generosity” and recognition of the council members to those who worked hard for the success of the activity — and is more likely to be repeated when the person-other realizes the value of his rewarding action. Strategies such as incentives, prize-awards and formal recognition ceremonies other than the painom culture is thus observed by the local leaders as these resonate the need to reinforce positive working behavior among the constituents. On the foregoing lines of alternative actions, the incurring cost and profit analysis may also affect the behavior of the person-other. During the pandemic, a number of our barangay health workers resigned to their posts, although they receive regular compensation, for reasons of health risk and compounded paper works. Some showed negative sentiments that they were less appreciated during this time and were not “gaining” much from the work they have. In this mentioned case scenario/s, the conclusive attention on Homans’ propositions, is accounted.
In another view, Blau’s position on social exchange, follows the framework of economics — stressing that interactions involve transactions, that is, participants give and receive just like exchanging goods (Calhoun et al, 2002). Unlike Homans, Blau looks into the value of interaction among people and grounded his view on the distribution of power as a collective outcome and the consequences of inequality to occur.
According to Blau, social interaction rests on the premise of anticipated rewards of association (intrinsic or extrinsic in nature). Take for example the interaction of a politician and the constituents where the former performs acts of humanitarian causes in anticipation of prestige or vote in the future elections. Social exchange as implied by Blau is (1) unequal due to the inherent quality of social goods to have no explicit value — compared to economic exchange where one scarce resource is explicitly exchanged for another. Example of which is the honorarium received in exchange for scarce time, effort, and skill. The nature of social exchange to occur on long periods suggests unguaranteed repay for the social goods thus incurring social debt. The problems with non-equal and non-repayment of goods defined the two important features of social exchanges: (1) it requires trust to function, and (2) if people want to remain out of debt, the social exchange may escalate. In the context of Philippine politics, “utang na loob” reciprocity (debt of gratitude) for instance, facilitates community’s behavioral pattern bounded on the premise of trust, cooperation and exchange (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012).
On another note, social exchange theory is critiqued for presuming that people always make rational decisions (rational choice theory). As posited by Crossman (2020), the theoretical model fails to capture the power that emotions play in our daily lives and in our interactions with others as it undercuts the power and force of social structures in shaping our interactions.
References
Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. (2012, December 20). The politics of Utang Na Loob. Why Nations Fail. https://whynationsfail.com/blog/2012/12/20/the-politics-of-utang-na-loob.html
Calhoun, C., Gerteis, J., Moody, J., Pfaff, S. and Virk, I (Eds). (2002). Contemporary Sociological Theory. Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Crossman, A. (2020). Learn how social exchange theory explains social interaction. ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/social-exchange-theory-3026634
Dillon, M. (2014). Introduction to sociological theory: theorists, concepts, and their applicability to the twenty-first century. 2nd edition. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Ritzer G. (2011). Sociological Theory. 8th edition. McGraw-Hill.
