Social Behavior as Exchange - Purdue University

Social Behavior as Exchange Author(s): George C. Homans Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 63, No. 6, Emile Durkheim-Georg Simmel, 18581958 (May, 1958), pp. 597-606 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: . Accessed: 07/12/2013 11:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@. .

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SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AS EXCHIANGE

GEORGE C. HOMANS

ABST RACT

To consider social behavior as an exchange of goods may clarify the relations among four bodies of theory: behavioral psychology, economics, propositions about the dynamics of influence, and propositions about the structure of small groups.

THE PROBLEMS OF SMALL-GROUP RESEARCH what happens in elementary social be-

This essay will hope to honor the memory of Georg Simmel in two different ways. So far as it pretends to be suggestive rather than conclusive, its tone will be Simmel's;

havior, even though we may not be able to explain why the propositions should take the form they do. A great amount of work has been done, and moreappearsevery day,

and its subject, too, will be one of his. Because Simmel, in essays such as those on sociability, games, coquetry, and conversation, was an analyst of elementary social behavior, we call him an ancestor of what

but what it all amounts to in the shape of a set of propositions from which, under specified conditions, many of the observational results might be derived, is not at all clear-and yet to state such a set is the

is known today as small-group research. first aim of science.

For what we are really studying in small The third job is to begin to show how the

groups is elementary social behavior: what propositions that empirically hold good in

happens when two or three persons are in small groups may be derived from some set

a position to influenceone another, the sort of still more general propositions. "Still

of thing of which those massive structures more general" means only that empirical

called "classes," "firms," "communities," propositions other than ours may also be

and "societies" must ultimately be com- derived from the set. This derivationwould

posed.

constitute the explanatory stage in the

As I survey small-group research today, science of elementary social behavior, for

I feel that, apart from just keeping on with explanation is derivation.' (I myself sus-

it, three sorts of things need to be done. The pect that the more general set will turn out

first is to show the relation between the re- to contain the propositions of behavioral

sults of experimental work done under psychology. I hold myself to be an "ulti-

laboratory conditions and the results of mate psychologicalreductionist,"but I can-

quasi- anthropological field research on not know that I am right so long as the re-

what those of us who do it are pleased to duction has not been carried out.)

call "real-life"groups in industry and else- I have come to think that all three of

where. If the experimental work has any- these jobs would be furtheredby our adopt-

thing to do with real life-and I am per- ing the view that interaction between per-

suaded that it has everything to do-its sons is an exchange of goods, material and

propositions cannot be inconsistent with non-material. This is one of the oldest

those discovered through the field work. theories of social behavior, and one that we

But the consistencyhas not yet been demon- still use every day to interpret our own be-

strated in any systematic way.

havior, as when we say, "I found so-and-so

The secondjob is to pull togetherin some rewarding"; or "I got a great deal out of

set of general propositions the actual re- him"; or, even, "Talking with him took a

sults, from the laboratory and from the great deal out of me." But, perhapsjust be-

field, of workon small groups-propositions 1 See R. B. Braithwaite,ScientificExplanation that at least sum up, to an approximation, (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1953).

597

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

cause it is so obvious, this view has been he is interested in what determineschanges

much neglected by social scientists. So far in the rate of emission of learned behavior,

as I know, the only theoretical work that whetherpecks at a target or somethingelse.

makes explicit use of it is Marcel Mauss's The more hungry the pigeon, the less

Essai sur le don, publishedin 1925, which is corn or other food it has gotten in the re-

ancient as social science goes.2 It may be cent past, the moreoften it will peck. By the

that the tradition of neglect is now chang- same token, if the behavior is often re-

ing and that, for instance, the psychologists inforced, if the pigeon is given much corn

who interpret behavior in terms of trans- every time it pecks, the rate of emissionwill

actions may be coming back to something fall off as the pigeon gets satiated. If, on the

of the sort I have in mind.3

other hand, the behavior is not reinforced

An incidental advantage of an exchange at all, then, too, its rate of emission will

theory is that it might bring sociology closer tend to fall off, though a long time may pass

to economics-that science of man most ad- before it stops altogether, before it is ex-

vanced, most capable of application, and, tinguished.In the emissionof many kinds of

intellectually, most isolated. Economics behaviorthe pigeon incursaversivestimula-

studies exchange carried out under special tion, or what I shall call "cost" for short,

circumstancesand with a most useful built- and this, too, will lead in time to a decrease

in numerical measure of value. What are in the emission rate. Fatigue is an example

the laws of the general phenomenon of of a "cost." Extinction, satiation, and cost,

which economicbehavioris one class?

by decreasingthe rate of emission of a par-

In what follows I shall suggest some ticular kind of behavior, rendermore prob-

reasons for the usefulness of a theory of so- able the emission of some other kind of

cial behavior as exchange and suggest the behavior, including doing nothing. I shall

nature of the propositions such a theory only add that even a hard-boiledpsycholo-

might contain.

gist puts "emotional" behavior, as well as

AN EXCHANGE PARADIGM

such things as pecking, among the unconditioned responses that may be reinforcedin

I start with the link to behavioral psy- operant conditioning.As a statement of the

chology and the kind of statement it makes propositions of behavioral psychology, the

about the behavior of an experimentalani- foregoing is, of course, inadequate for any

mal such as the pigeon.4 As a pigeon ex- purposeexcept my presentone.

plores its cage in the laboratory,it happens We may look on the pigeon as engaged

to peck a target, whereupon the psycholo- in an exchange-pecks for corn-with the

gist feeds it corn. The evidence is that it psychologist, but let us not dwell upon that,

will peck the target again; it has learned the for the behavior of the pigeon hardly de-

behavior,or, as my friend Skinnersays, the terminesthe behaviorof the psychologistat

behavior has been reinforced, and the all. Let us turn to a situation where the ex-

pigeon has undergoneoperantconditioning. change is real, that is, where the determina-

This kind of psychologist is not interested tion is mutual. Supposewe are dealingwith

in how the behavior was learned: "learning two men. Each is emitting behavior re-

theory"is a poorname for his field. Instead, inforced to some degreeby the behaviorof

2Translated by I. Cunnison as The Gift (Glen- the other. How it was in the past that each

coe, Ill.: Free Press, 1954).

learned the behavior he emits and how he

8 In social anthropology D. L. Oliver is working learned to find the other's behavior re-

along these lines, and I owe much to him. See also T. M. Newcomb, "The Prediction of Interpersonal Attraction," American Psychologist, XI (1956), 575-86.

'B. F. Skinner, Science and Human Behavior (New York: Macmillan Co., 1953).

inforcing we are not concerned with. It is enough that each does find the other's behavior reinforcing, and I shall call the reinforcers-the equivalent of the pigeon's corn-values, for this, I think, is what we

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SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AS EXCHANGE

599

mean by this term. As he emits behavior, tivities of the group. Festinger and his col-

each man may incur costs, and each man leagues consider two kinds of reinforcing

has more than one course of behavior open activity: the symbolic behaviorwe call "so-

to him.

cial approval" (sentiment) and activity

This seems to me the paradigm of ele- valuable in other ways, such as doing some-

mentarysocial behavior,and the problemof thing interesting.

the elementary sociologist is to state prop- The other variable they work with they

ositions relating the variationsin the values call communicationand others call interac-

and costs of each man to his frequency dis- tion. This is a frequency variable; it is a

tribution of behavior among alternatives, measure of the frequency of emission of

where the values (in the mathematical valuable and costly verbal behavior. We

sense) taken by these variable for one man must bear in mind that, in general, the one

determinein part their values for the other.5 kind of variable is a function of the other.

I see no reason to believe that the prop- Festinger and his co-workers show that

ositions of behavioralpsychology do not ap- the more cohesive a group is, that is, the

ply to this situation, though the complexity more valuable the sentiment or activity the

of their implications in the concrete case members exchange with one another, the

may be great indeed. In particular,we must greaterthe averagefrequencyof interaction

suppose that, with men as with pigeons, of the members.6With men,as with pigeons,

an increase in extinction, satiation, or aver- the greater the reinforcement, the more

sive stimulation of any one kind of behavior often is the reinforced behavior emitted.

will increase the probability of emission of The more cohesive a group, too, the greater

some other kind. The problem is not, as it the changethat memberscan producein the

is often stated, merely, what a man's values behavior of other members in the direction

are, what he has learned in the past to find of renderingthese activities more valuable.7

reinforcing,but how much of any one value That is, the more valuable the activities

his behavior is getting him now. The more he gets, the less valuable any furtherunit of

that membersget, the more valuable those that they must give. For if a person is emit-

that value is to him, and the less often he ting behavior of a certain kind, and other

will emit behaviorreinforcedby it.

people do not find it particularlyrewarding,

THE INFLUENCE PROCESS

these otherswill suffertheir own production of sentimentand activity, in time, to fall off.

We do not, I think, possess the kind of But perhaps the first person has found their

studies of two-person interaction that sentiment and activity rewarding, and, if

would either bear out these propositions or he is to keep on getting them, he must make

fail to do so. But we do have studies of his own behavior more valuable to the

larger numbersof persons that suggest that others. In short, the propositions of behav-

they may apply, notably the studies by ioral psychology imply a tendency toward

Festinger,Schachter,Back, and theirassoci- a certain proportionalitybetween the value

ates on the dynamics of influence. One of tn AthArc .of the. hAhn%;1'ir n mnn CilyPc

the variables they work with they call co-

hesiveness,definedas anything that attracts 6K. W. Back, "The Exertion of Influence through

people to take part in a group. Cohesiveness is a value variable; it refers to the degree of reinforcementpeople find in the ac-

Social Communication," in L. Festinger, K. Back, S. Schachter, H. H. Kelley, and J. Thibaut (eds.), Theory and Experiment in Social Communication (Ann Arbor: Research Center for Dynamics, Uni-

5Ibid., pp. 297-329. The discussionof "double contingency"by T. Parsonsand E. A. Shils could easily lead to a similarparadigm(see Toward a General Theory of Action [Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress, 1951], pp. 14-16).

versity of Michigan, 1950), pp. 21-36.

'S. Schachter, N. Ellertson, D. McBride, and D. Gregory, "An Experimental Study of Cohesiveness and Productivity," Human Relations, IV (1951), 229-38.

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600

THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

and the value to him of the behavior they latter often appear to be in practical equi-

give him.8

librium, and by this I mean nothing fancy.

Schachter also studied the behavior of I do not mean that all real-life groups are

members of a group toward two kinds of in equilibrium.I certainly do not mean that

other members, "conformers" and "devi- all groups must tend to equilibrium. I do

ates."9I assume that conformersare people not meanthat groupshave built-in antidotes

whose activity the other membersfind valu- to change: there is no homeostasis here.

able. For conformity is behavior that co- I do not mean that we assume equilibrium.

incides to a degree with some group stand- I mean only that we sometimes observe it,

ard or norm, and the only meaning I can that for the time we are with a group-and

assign to norm is "a verbal description of it is often short-there is no great change

behavior that many members find it valu- in the values of the variables we choose to

able for the actual behavior of themselves measure.If, for instance, person A is inter-

and others to conform to." By the same acting with B more than with C both at the

token, a deviate is a memberwhose behavior beginningand at the end of the study, then

is not particularlyvaluable. Now Schachter at least by this crude measurethe group is

shows that, as the membersof a groupcome in equilibrium.

to see another member as a deviate, their Many of the Festinger-Schachterstudies

interaction with him-communication ad- are experimental, and their propositions

dressed to getting him to change his behav- about the processof influenceseem to me to

ior-goes up, the faster the more cohesive imply the kind of proposition that empiri-

the group.The membersneed not talk to the cally holds good of real-life groups in prac-

otherconformersso much; they are relative- tical equilibrium.For instance, Festinger et

ly satiatedby the conformers'behavior:they al. find that, the more cohesive a group is,

have gotten what they want out of them. the greater the change that members can

But if the deviate, by failing to change his produce in the behavior of other members.

behavior, fails to reinforce the members, If the influence is exerted in the direction

they start to withhold social approval from of conformity to group norms, then, when

him: the deviate gets low sociometricchoice the processof influencehas accomplishedall

at the end of the experiment. And in the the change of which it is capable, the propo-

most cohesivegroups-those Schachtercalls sition should hold good that, the more co-

"high cohesive-relevant"-interaction with hesive a group is, the larger the number of

the deviate also falls off in the end and is membersthat conform to its norms. And it

lowest among those members that rejected does hold good.10

him most strongly, as if they had given him Again, Schachterfound,in the experiment

up as a bad job. But how plonking can we I summarized above, that in the most co-

get? These findings are utterly in line with hesive groups and at the end, when the ef-

everyday experience.

fort to influence the deviate had failed,

PRACTICAL EQUILIBRIUM

members interacted little with the deviate and gave him little in the way of sociometric

At the beginningof this paperI suggested choice. Now two of the propositions that

that one of the tasks of small-groupresearch hold good most often of real-life groups in

was to show the relationbetween the results practical equilibriumare precisely that the

of experimental work done under labora- more closely a member'sactivity conforms

tory conditions and the results of field re- to the norms the more interaction he re-

search on real-life small groups. Now the ceives from other members and the more

8 Skinner, op. cit., p. 100.

liking choices he gets from them too. From

'S. Schachter, "Deviation, Rejection, and Communication," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psy-

chology, XLVI (1951), 190-207.

0 L. Festinger, S. Schachter, and K. Back, Social Pressures in InformnalGroups (New York: Harper

& Bros., 1950), pp. 72-100.

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