Social Exchange Theory and Divine Insurance Policies

One of the most famous theories in the discipline of communication is Social Exchange Theory. Very simply put, humans evaluate the costs and benefits of each relationship, and pursue those relationships that give them satisfaction from within this economic mindset, and leave relationships that fail to yield more benefits than costs.

Basically, people will suffer pains in a relationship, but only in so far as they are outweighed by the pleasure. The theory also predicts that people compare the satisfaction levels that they could be getting from alternate relationships, and pursue the opportunities that promise the most overall beneficial path.

It's pretty straight forward, and it seems to be an intuitive approach to the movement of human relationships.

Right...

Let me take a deep breath.

Ok.

I fucking hate Social Exchange Theory. It reduces a wildly complicated process of virtues and values, and creates an economy of the human spirit. I trade these things for those things. It utterly fails to describe my experience of relationships. I also think it fails to describe my behavior.

Now, don't get me wrong. I do things that benefit me. I spend time with people I enjoy. I like it when people do things that make my life easier. I also do things for others. I suffer pain for the sake of ends that are not directly my own. But to connect these two aspects of human interaction in a mercantile way fails to account for the reality of relationships.

First off, there's loyalty. Many of the things I do for others is out of a sense of loyalty. I put up with crap from people I am duty bound to simply because I have an obligation, and not because they are heaping rewards on my life. The proponent of SET has a few responses. They could say that my loyalty restricts my options, and therefor limits my actions. But it doesn't actually eliminate my options, those options are still options, I just choose otherwise (going against the theory). They could also try to cast loyalty as one of the benefits I get from the relationship. What? I don't seek relationships to reward me with loyalty. I am loyal, a personal characteristic that concerns relationships, but to say I get loyalty from relationships I stay in is to put it precisely wrong. I maintain relationships because I am loyal.

Eventually, as you measure scenarios by SET you get a rapidly increasing list of very weird benefits and costs. Not having to face disappointment as a benefit. Loyalty as a benefit. Rejection of cultural values as a cost. SET started off saying, "The reason people stay in or leave relationships is because of an analysis of benefits and costs." If in the process of applying the theory every reason people stay in or leave a relationship becomes a benefit or cost, then SET ends up saying, "The reasons people stay in or leave relationships is because of the reasons they stay in or leave relationships." Read it again. We call this a tautology in the game, and tautologies aren't highly thought of as explanations. Useful for communicating an underlying ideology, but not as a outward description. "Cost and reward" have to mean something different than "the reason's people stay or leave relationships," in order for the theory to have descriptive power. If they don't, SET isn't actually a theory, but rather a paradigm that casts human interaction as economical.

A subtle but important difference. A theory is something used to explain, describe, and predict objects, people, and events. It can be systematically tested, and disproven. But a paradigm... a worldview... now that's a different animal. Worldviews aren't the sort of thing that are proven or disproven, but rather can only be roughly compared to other worldviews. Even rough comparisons are fraught with difficulty, as worldviews 1.) tend to support themselves circularly, and 2.) often contain beliefs concerning warrant, that is, they have opinions about what counts as evidence, and finally, 3.) usually include claims about what the most important goals are, that they, unsurprisingly, pursue better than other worldviews.

But, despite the difficulties, we will do our best. Is SET (or should we rechristen it Social Exchange Paradigm? SEP? Out of respect, lets not.) a legitimate way of looking at the world? I think not. I think one could view everything from within this lens... but this vision distorts the realities of what is actually going on inside the minds of many people.

It is true, I think, that many people do make economical decisions concerning relationships. But not everyone, and I also believe that even economically minded people will move into other decision making models in certain situations. It just doesn't capture the love, fear, compassion, dignity, duty, goodness, and spite that motivates human actions. People also stay in and leave relationships to uphold oaths, fulfill unspoken commitments, be a support system, cause pain, seek spiritual truths, simplify situations, challenge the other, and a whole host of other reasons that are not economical.

Just because SET can look at these things, casting them as cost and benefits, doesn't make it an adequate characterization of the events. There are events beyond a logical, self serving model. Even if an equation can be constructed about the ways an action is logical or self serving, it does not make the story true.

SET fails to vividly represent the scope of human behavior.

Another way of measuring a paradigm is by looking at the reality it creates. SET encourages a selfish model, placing the importance on the person, and assigns them a moral freedom to move in any way that way that most benefits them. Give birth to a child who whines? Eats too much? Votes Republican? If they don't benefit you enough to overcome the trouble they cause... move on. What?!?

What about a worldview that encouraged the moral treatment of all, devoted to seeking the good of the self, as well as the other, and looked at all the gifts and resources available and tried to assign, develop, and release them toward the service of the greatest good? While this doesn't capture the experience of all people, either... if you value human thriving, goodness, and equity, isn't it a better goal?

At this point I would like to turn my attention to another economical model that describes what I feel is a fundamentally non-economical situation. I like to call it the Divine Insurance Policy.

Many religious people seek spiritual reward by suffering through earthly situations. They concern themselves with learning the rules of God, and abide by those rules so that they receive the promise of impossible reward. Consider a stripped down version of Christianity. Do good things, that way you get into heaven and live forever in paradise.

Ok.

Deep breath.

Here we go.

What the fuck?!? How is an act a good one if your reward is infinite pleasure? Any person capable of thinking strategically on a timeline would choose temporary suffering in exchange for eternal satisfaction. Only the impatient, ignorant, or non-believing would act otherwise.

Trust me, this is a bad way of approaching this issue. Ever met a self-righteous person, so convinced that they have earned their way into heaven, that they are incapable of treating those who are different with compassion or reflecting critically on their beliefs and behaviors? It's sick. All we have to do is make these payments of church attendance, intellectual submission, and do some things we don't want to and we earn our way into heaven.

Earn?!? The Christian vision of heaven is so much more than anything we could ever accomplish by our own actions, and it was made real to us by a sacrifice more beautiful than we could ever deserve. No belief we could ever entertain, nor any act we could ever perform, could lead to the salvation wrought by Christ's death on the cross.

And what does Christ ask in return for a debt we could never pay? That we be like him. That we listen to the Father for the best ways to serve others, and that we not hold them indebted to us by the things we do.

Love unconditionally. Refuse to meter out your devotion, compassion, and service only to those who can return the favor. Make your commitment to the well being of all things unbreakable, so that even in the darkest hours you work for the good of the world.

The gifts of God are not to be measured by economy. Human interaction is not to be measured by economy. Fuck, while we're at it, let's stop measuring wealth and human success economically. Economies serve those who have and enslave those who don't. Break the system. Spend your money to create the world you want to see, give to the needy, and refuse to lose sight of the blessings in your life. You don't deserve even 1/10 of what you earn when compared to the work environments and compensations on the world stage.

Shatter any notion of earning anything. Instead be thankful for the things you have, and when you have undazed yourself from the dizzying awe that comes from staring into the infinite vastness of the things for which you can be grateful, do your best to be thankful.



P.S. - Being thankful, in case you were wondering, means putting all your amazing gifts to work. For you, for God, for everyone.