Social exchange theory SET

• A holistic approach to studying romantic relationships may be better suited to explaining the complexity of relationships maintenance.
• Social exchange theory is one of the so-called 'economic' theories of relationships.
• Economic theories describe relationships as a series of exchanges aiming at balancing rewards and costs.
• Social exchange theory (SET) is explained by social psychologists Thibault and Kelly (1959) as a series of stages: Sampling stage, Bargaining stage, Commitment stage.
• In the Sampling stage, people explore potential rewards and costs of relationships, not just romantic ones, either by direct experience or by observing others.
• The Bargaining stage is the first stage of any romantic relationship, where partners exchange rewards and costs, figure out the most profitable exchanges and negotiate the dynamics of the relationship.
• The Commitment stage is when relationships become more stable, and partners become familiar with sources of rewards and costs, and each other's expectations, so rewards increase and costs lessen.
• Research examining social exchange theory is limited, but some studies show evidence that supports the main assumptions of the theory.
• Floyd et al. (1994) found that commitment develops when couples are satisfied with, and feel rewarded in, a relationship and when they perceive that equally attractive or more attractive alternative relationships are unavailable to them.
• Sprecher (2001) found that comparison levels for alternatives were a strong predictor of commitment in a relationship and that rewards were important as a predictor of satisfaction, especially for women.
• Based on these findings, it can be concluded that some people appear to base their evaluation of romantic relationships on rewards and costs (in particular, Comparison Level for alternatives), just as SET suggests.
• It would appear that some people do stay in their current relationship while it remains more profitable than the alternatives.
• The majority of research into Social Exchange Theory is based on studying strangers that are involved in some kind of game-based scenario with rewards and costs variably distributed during the game.
• There are many cases where people stay in high-cost relationships (for example, when one partner is chronically ill) without feeling dissatisfied.
• People rarely start assessing their relationships before they feel unsatisfied with them.
• The notion of rewards and costs is highly subjective.
• The ‘relationships’ between these partners are nothing like real-life romantic relationships, which are based on getting to know another person and establishing trust.
• SET does not explain why many people stay in abusive relationships despite the lack of rewards and overwhelming costs.
• It is not clear how much more attractive alternatives should become, or by how much costs should outweigh the rewards, for the person to start feeling dissatisfied with their current relationship.
• Emerson and Cook (1978) designed a laboratory experiment where each of 112 participants was bargaining with a partner to maximise personal score in a computer game.
• SET's deterministic view of romantic relationships suggests that if the costs outweigh the rewards, a person will want to opt out of a relationship.
• SET takes a nomothetic approach to studying relationships, trying to uncover universal laws of how relationships are maintained that would be applicable to all couples.
• Basing the explanation of such complex phenomena as romantic relationships purely on costs and rewards makes it reductionist and limits the range of real life romantic experiences it can explain.
• SET can be used to help distressed couples in real life, thus demonstrating its real-world application and benefit for relationships.
• The predictive validity of SET is very limited; it cannot establish with significant certainty whether a person will feel happy or unhappy in a relationship, based on the costs and rewards they are getting from it.
• Clark and Mills (2011) argue that while this may be true of work interactions between colleagues (exchange relationships), it is rarely the case in romantic (communal) relationships, where rewards are distributed freely without necessarily keeping a score.
• These studies lack internal validity, making SET less applicable to real-life romantic relationships.
• The Social Exchange Theory key concepts are very difficult to define.
• One person may find lots of praise from a partner rewarding, but another person could find it annoying, making it difficult to measure.
• There is an issue with cause and effect in regards to SET assumptions.
• More than that, other research findings suggest that it is not a balance of rewards and costs, but rather perceived fairness of relationships, that keeps partners happy and committed to the relationships.
• SET assumes that from the beginning of a relationship partners keep some kind of tally of profit and loss, and return reward for reward and cost for cost.
• Being unhappy in relationships may lead a person to question whether there are more rewards than costs in their relationships and the potential alternatives, but these thoughts occur only after the dissatisfaction is discovered.
• The ways in which relationships are maintained vary significantly from couple to couple, so an individually based, in-depth idiographic approach may be better suited to studying the maintenance of romantic relationships.