Chapter1: Introduction: Sociological Theory

George C. Homans

George Homans's (1910-1989) exchange scheme first surfaced in a polemical reaction to Claude Levi-Strauss's structural analysis of cross cousin marriage patterns. In collaboration with David Schneider, Homans previewed what become prominent themes in his writings: (1) a skeptical view of any form of functional theorizing, (2) an emphasis on psychological principles as the axioms of social theory, and (3) a preoccupation with exchange-theoretic concepts.1 In their assessment of Levi-Strauss's exchange functionalism, Homans and Schneider took exception to virtually all that made Levi-Strauss's theory~ First, they rejected the conceptualization of different form of indirect, generalized exchange. In so conceptualizing exchange, Levi- Strauss "thinned the meaning out of it' Second, Levi- Strauss's position that different forms of exchange symbolically reaffirm and integrate different patterns of social organization was questioned, for an "institution is what it is because it results from the drives, or meets the immediate needs, of individuals or subgroups within a society" The result of this rejection of Levi-Strauss's thought was that Homans and Schneider argued that exchange theory must initially emphasize face to face interacti0n, focus primarily on limited and direct exchanges among individuals, and recognize that social structures are created and sustained by the behaviors of individuals.

With this critique of the anthropological tradition, Homans resurrected the utilitarians' concern with individual self-interest in the conceptual trappings of psychological behaviorism, Indeed, as Homans and Schneider emphasized, "We may call this an individual self interest theory, if we remember that interests may be other than economic." By the early 1960s,this self-interest theory was recast in the behaviorist language of B. E Skinner. Given Homans's commitment to axiomatic theorizing and his concern with face-to-face interaction among individuals, it was perhaps inevitable that he would look toward Skinner and, indirectly, to the early founders of behaviorism I, P Pavlov, Edward Lee Thorndike, and J. B. Watson. But Homans borrowed directly from Skinner's reformulations of early behaviorist principles. Stripped of its subtlety, Skinnerian behaviorism states as its basic principle that, if an animal has a need, it will perform activities that in the past have satisfied tins need. A first corollary to this principle is that organisms will attempt to avoid unpleasant experiences but will endure limited amounts of such experiences as a cost in emitting the behaviors that satisfy an overriding need. A second corollary is that organisms will continue emitting certain behaviors only as long as they continue to produce desired and expected effects. A third corollary of Skinnerian psychology emphasizes that, as needs are satisfied by a particular behavior, animals are less likely m emit the behavior. A fourth corollary states that, if in the recent past a behavior has brought rewards and if these rewards suddenly stop, the organism will appear angry and gradually cease emitting the behavior that formerly satisfied its needs. A final corollary holds that, if an event has consistently occurred at the same time as a behavior that was rewarded or punished, the event becomes a stimulus and is likely to produce the behavior or its avoidance.

These principles were derived from behavioral psychologists' highly controlled observations of animals, whose needs could he inferred from deprivations imposed by the investigators. Although human needs are much more difficult to ascertain than those of laboratory pigeons and mice and, despite the fact that humans interact in groupings that defy experimental controls, Homans believed that the principles of operant psychology could be applied to the explanation of human behavior in both simple and complex groupings. One of the most important adjustments of Skinnerian principles to fit the facts of human social organization involved the recognition that needs are satisfied by other people and that people reward and punish one another. In contrast with Skinner's animals, which only indirectly interact with Skinner through the apparatus of the laboratory and which have little ability to reward Skinner (except perhaps to confirm his principles), humans constantly give and take, or exchange, rewards and punishments.

The conceptualization of human behavior as exchange of rewards (and punishments) among interacting individuals led Homans to incorporate, in altered form, the first principle of elementary economics: Humans rationally calculate the long-range consequences of their actions in a marketplace and attempt to maximize their material profits in their transactions. Homans qualified this simplistic notion, however:

Indeed we are out to rehabilitate the economic man. The trouble with him was not that he was economic, that he used resources to some advantage, but that he was antisocial and materialistic, interested only in money and material goods and ready to sacrifice even his old mother to get them.

Thus. to be an appropriate explanation of human behavior, tiffs basic economic assumption must be altered in four ways: (1) People do not always attempt to maximize profits; they seek only to make some profit in exchange relations. (2) Humans do not usually make either long-run or rational calculations in exchanges, for, in everyday life, "the Theory of Games is good advice for human behavior but a poor description of it." (3) The things exchanged involve not only money but also other commodities, including approval, esteem, compliance, love, affection, and other less materialistic goods. (4) The marketplace is not a separate domain in human exchanges, for all interaction involves individuals exchanging rewards (and punishments) and seeking profits.

THE BASIC EXCHANGE PRINCIPLES

In Propositions ⅠthoughⅢ of Table 12.2, Homansian principles of Skinnerian psychology are restated. The morn valuable an activity (Ⅲ). The more often such activity is rewarded (Ⅰ), the more a situation approximates one in which activity has been rewarded in the past (Ⅱ), the more likely a particular activity will be emitted. Proposition IV indicates the condition under which the first three propositions fall into temporary abeyance. In accordance with the reinforcement principle of satiation or the economic law of marginal utility, humans eventually define rewarded activities as less valuable and begin to emit other activities in search of different rewards (again, however, in accordance with the principles enumerated in Propositions Ⅰ through Ⅲ Proposition Ⅴ introduces a more complicated set of conditions that qualify PropositionsⅠthrough Ⅳ From Skinner's observation that pigeons reveal anger and frustration when they do not receive an expected reward. Horns reasoned that humans will probably reveal the same behavior.

In addition to these principles, Homans introduces a "rationality proposition," which summarizes the stimulus, success, and value propositions. This proposition is also placed in Table 12.2 because it is so prominent in Homans's actual construction of deductive explanations. To translate the somewhat awkward vocabulary of Principle Ⅵ as Homans wrote it: People make calculations about various alternative lines of action. They perceive or calculate the value of the rewards that might be yielded by various actions. But they also temper this calculation through perceptions of how probable the receipt of rewards will be. Low probability of receiving highly valued rewards would lower their reward potential. Conversely, high probability of receiving a lower-valued reward increases their overall reward potential. This relationship can be stated by the following formula:

Action=Value ×Probablity

Table 12.2 Homans's Exchange Propositions

Ⅰ Success Proposition: For all actions taken by persons, the more often a particular action of a person is rewarded, the more likely the person is to perform that action,

Ⅱ Stimulus Proposition: If in the past the occurrence of a particular stimulus or set of stimuli has been the occasion on which a person's action has been rewarded, then, the more similar the present stimuli are to the past ones, the more likely the person is to perform the action or some similar action now.

Ⅲ Value Proposition: The more valuable to a person the result of his or her action is, the more likely he or she is to perform the action.

Ⅳ. Deprivation/Satiation Proposition: The more often in the recent past a person has received a particular reward, the less valuable any further unit of that reward becomes for that person.

Ⅴ. Aggression/Approva/ Propositions;

A. When a person's action does not receive the reward expected or receives punishment that was not expected, he or she will be angry and become more likely to perform aggressive behavior. The results of such behavior become more valuable to that person.

B. When a person's actions receive the reward expected, especially greater reward than expected, or does not receive punishment expected, he or she will be pleased and become more likely to perform approving behavior. The results of such behavior become more valuable to that person.

Ⅵ, Rationality Proposition: In choosing between alternative actions, a person will choose that one for which, as perceived by him or her at the time, the value of the result, multiplied by the probability of getting that result, is greater.

People are, Homans asserted, rational in the sense that they are likely to emit that behavior, or action, among alternatives in which value on the right side of the equation is largest. For example, if Action is highly valued (say, 10) but the probability of getting it by emitting Action is low (.20) and if Action is less valued (say, 5) but the probability of receiving it is greater (.50) than Action, then the actor will emit Action₂ (because 10×20 = 2 yields less reward than 5 X .50 = 2.5).

As summarized in Table 12.2, Homans believed these basic principles or laws explain, in the sense of deductive explanation, patterns of human organization. As is obvious, these "laws" are psychological in nature. What is more, these psychological axioms are the only general sociological propositions because "there are no general sociological propositions that hold good of all societies or social groups as such." The fact that psychological propositions are the most general, however, does not make any less relevant or important the sociological propositions stating the relationships among group properties or between group properties and those of individuals. On the contrary, these are the very propositions that are to be deduced from the psychological axioms. Thus, sociological propositions will be conspicuous in the deductive system emanating from the psychological principles.

USING THE BASIC PRINCIPLES TO

CONSTRUCT EXPLANATIONS

Homans himself never presented a well developed deductive explanation, even though he championed their development.6 He tended to simply invoke, in a rather ad hoc fashion, his axioms and to reconcile them in a very loose and imprecise mariner with empirical regularities. Or he constructed brief deductive schemes to illustrate his strategy. One of Homans's explanations is reproduced below. Homans recognized that this is not a complete explanation, but he argued that it is as good as any other that exists. Moreover, although certain steps in the deductive scheme are omitted, Homans believed this was the proper way to develop scientific explanations. In this scheme, Homans sought to explain Golden's Law that industrialization and the level of literacy in the population are highly correlated. Such empirical generalizations are often considered to be theory, but, as a theorist, Homans correctly perceived that this "law" is only an empirical regularity that belongs at the bottom of the deductive scheme. Propositions move from the most abstract statement, or the

axiom(s), to the specific empirical regularity to be explained. Golden's Law is

thus explained in the following manner:

1. Individuals are more likely to perform an activity the more~ valuable they perceive the reward of that activity to be.

2. Individuals are morn likely to perform an activity the mote successful they perceive the activity to be in getting that reward.

3, Compared with agricultural societies, a higher proportion of individuals in industrial societies are prepared to reward activities that involve literacy. (Industrialists want to hire bookkeepers, clerks, and persons who can make and read blueprints, manuals, and so forth.)

4. Therefore, a higher proportion of individuals in industrial societies will perceive the acquisition of literacy as rewarding.

5. And [by (1)] a higher proportion will attempt to acquire literacy.

6. The provision of schooling costs money, directly or indirectly.

7. Compared with agricultural societies, a higher proportion of individuals in industrial societies are, by some standard, wealthy.

8. Therefore, a higher proportion of individuals are able to provide schooling (through government or private charity), and a higher proportion of individuals ate able to pay for their own schooling without charity.

9. And a higher proportion wiI1 perceive the effort to acquire literacy as apt to be successful.

10. And [by (2) as well as by (1)] a higher proportion will attempt to acquire literacy

11. Because their perceptions are generally accurate, a higher proportion of individuals in industrial societies will acquire literacy. That is, the literacy rate is apt to be higher in an industrial than in an agricultural society.

Propositions 1 and 2 are an earlier statement of the rationality proposition that summarizes the success, stimulus, and value propositions. Prom these first two propositions, or axioms, others are derived in an effort to explain Golden's Law (Proposition Ⅱ in the previous scheme). Examining some features of this explanation can provide insight into Homans's deductive strategy.

In this example, the transition between Propositions 2 and 3 ignores so many necessary variables that it simply describes in the words of behavioral psychology what Homans perceived to have occurred. Why are people in industrial societies prepared to reward literacy? This statement does not explain; it describes and, thus, opens a large gap in the logic of the deductive system. Homans believed that this statement is a given. It states a boundary condition, for the theory is not trying to explain why people are prepared to reward literacy Another story is required to explain this event. Thus, Homans argued that "no theory can explain everything" and that it is necessary to ignore some things and assume them to be givens for the purposes of explanation at hand. The issue remains, however: Has not Homans defined away the most interesting sociological issue--what makes people ready to reward literacy in a society's historical development? Homans believed people are just ready to do so.

Another problem in this scheme comes with the placement of the word therefore. This transitive is typically used immediately following a statement of the givens that define away important classes of sociological variables. For example, the "therefore" preceding key propositions (4 and 8) begs questions such as the following: Why do people perceive literacy as rewarding? What level of industrialization would make this so? What level of educational development? What feedback consequences does desire for literacy have for educational development? By ignoring the why anti what of these questions, Homans could then in Proposition 5 and 10 reinsert the higher order axioms (1 and 2) of the explanation, thereby giving the scheme an appearance of deductive continuity~ Answers to the critical sociological questions have been

avoided, such as why people perceive as valuable and rewarding certain crucial activities.

Homans's reply to such criticisms is important to note. First, he emphasized that tiffs deductive scheme was just an example or illustrative sketch, leaving out many details. Second, and more important, Homans contended that it is unreasonable for the critic to expect that a theory can and must explain every given condition (Propositions 3 and 7, for example). He offered the example of Newton's laws, which can help explain the movement of the tides (by virtue of gravitational forces of the moon ~relative to the axis of the earth), but these laws cannot explain why oceans are present and why the earth exists. This latter argument is reasonable, in principle, because deductive theories explain only a delimited range of phenomena. Still, even though Homans did not need to explain the givens of a deductive scheme, all the interesting sociological questions were contained in those givens. Moreover, these questions beg for the development of abstract sociological laws to explain them (Golden's Law is not an abstract principle, only an empirical generalization).

FROM BEHAVIOR TO MACROSTRUCTURE

Homans provided many illustrations of how behavioristic principles can explain research findings in social psychology. One of the most interesting chapters in Social Behavior comes at the end of the book, where he offered a view of how exchange processes can explain population-level and societal level social phenomena. Phrased as a last orgy in his explication, Homans addressed the issue of how societies and civilizations are, ultimately, built from the face-to face exchanges of people in groups. His scenario went something like this:

At points in history, some people have the "capital" to reinforce or provide rewards for others, whether it conies from their possessing a surplus of food, money, a moral code, or valued leadership qualities. With such capital, "institutional elaboration" can occur, because some can invest their capital by trying to induce others (through rewards or threats of punishments) to engage in novel activities. These new activities can involve an "intermeshing of the behavior of a large number of persons in a more complicated or roundabout way than has hitherto been the custom" Whether this investment involves conquering territory and organizing a kingdom or creating a new form of business organization, . those making the investment must have the resources--whether it be an army to threaten punishment, a charismatic personality to morally persuade followers, or the ability to provide for people's subsistence needs--to keep those so organized in a situation in which they derive some profit. At some point in this process, such organizations can become more efficient and hence rewarding to all when the rewards are clearly specified as generalized reinforcers, such as money, and when the activities expended to get their rewards are more clearly specified, such as when explicit norms and rules emerge. In turn, this increased efficiency allows greater organization of activities. This new efficiency increases the likelihood that generalized reinforcers and explicit norms will be used to regulate exchange relations and hence increase the profits to those involved. Eventually the exchange networks involving generalized reinforcers and an increasingly complex body of rules require differentiation of subunits-such as a legal and banking system--that can maintain the stability of the generalized reinforcers and the integrity of the norms.

From this kind of exchange process, then, social organization whether at a societal, group, organizational, or institutional level--is constructed. The emergence of most patterns of organization is frequently buried in the recesses of history, but such emergence is typified by these accelerating processes: (1) People with capital (reward capacity) invest in creating more complex social relations that increase their rewards and allow those whose activities are organized to realize a profit. (2) With increased rewards, these people can invest in more complex patterns of organization. (3) More complex patterns of organization require, first, the use of generalized reinforcers and then the codification of norms to regulate activity. (4) With this organizational base, it then becomes possible to elaborate further the pattern of organization, creating the necessity for differentiation of subunits that ensure the stability of the generalized reinforcers and the integrity of norms, (5) With this differentiation, it is possible to expand even further the networks of interaction because there are standardized means for rewarding activities and codifying new norms as well as for enforcing old rules.

However, these complex patterns of social organization employing formal rules and secondary or generalized reinforcers can never cease to meet the more primary needs of individuals. Institutions first emerged to meet these needs, and, no matter how complex institutional arrangements become and how ~many norms and formal rules are elaborated, these extended interaction networks must ultimately reinforce humans' mote primary needs. When these arrangements cede meeting the primary needs from which they ultimately sprang, an institution is vulnerable and apt to collapse if alternative actions, which can provide primary rewards, present themselves as a possibility. In this situation, low- or high-status persons--those who have little to lose by nonconformity to existing prescriptions--will break from established ways to expose to others a more rewarding alternative. Institutions might continue to extract conformity for a period, but they will cease to do so when they lose the capacity to provide primary rewards, Thus, complex institutional arrangements must ultimately be satisfying to individuals, not simply because of the weight of culture or norms but because they are constructed to serve people:

Institutions do not keep going just because they are enshrined in norms, and it seems extraordinary that anyone should ever talk as if they did. They keep going because they have payoffs, ultimately payoffs~ for individuals. Nor is society a perpetual-motion machine, supplying its own fuel. It cannot keep itself going by planting in the young a desire for these goods and only those goods that it happens to be in shape to provide. It must provide goods that men find rewarding not simply because they are sharers in a particular culture but because they are men.

That institutions of society must also meet primary needs sets the stage for a continual conflict between institutional elaboration and the primary needs of humans. As one form of institutional elaboration meets one set of needs, it can deprive people of other important rewards--opening the way for deviation

and innovation by those presenting the alter native rewards that have been suppressed by dominant institutional arrangements. In turn, the new institutional elaborations that can ensue from innovators who have the capital to reward others will suppress other needs, which, through processes similar to its inception, will set off another process of institutional elaboration.

CONCLUSION

In sum, this sketch of how social organization is linked to elementary processes of exchange represents an interesting perspective for analyzing how patterns of social organization are built, maintained, altered, and broken down. Moreover, other exchange theorists repeated the broad contours of this kind of argument as they applied the principles of behaviorism or classical economics to explanations of larger-scale patterns of human organization. Yet, little of Homans's explicit imagery was retained, although the effort to move from micro principles about behavior of individuals to macro-level patterns of organization remained a critical concern in exchange theories.

Dialectical Exchange Theory: Peter M. Blau

A few years after George C. Homans' behavioristic approach appeared, another leading sociological theorist--Peter M. Blau--explored exchange theory. Though Blau accepted the behavioristic underpindings of' exchange as a basic social process, he recognized that sociological theory had to move beyond simplistic behavioristic conceptualizations of human behavior. Similiarly, crude views of humans as wholly rational had to be modified to fit the realities of human behavior. In the end, he developed a dialectical approach, emphasizing that within the strains toward integration arising from exchange are forces of opposition and potential conflict. Moreover, his analysis has a Simmelian thrust because, much like Georg Sirmmel, Blau tried to discover the form of exchange processes at both the micro and macro levels, and in so doing, he sought to highlight what was common to exchanges among individuals as well as among collective units of organization.

THE BASIC EXCHANGE PRINCIPLES

Although Blau never listed his principles in quite the same way as Homans did with his "axioms," the principles are nonetheless easy to extract from his discursive discussion. In Table 12.3, the basic principles are summarized. PropositionⅠ which can be termed the rationality principle, states that the frequency of rewards and the value of these rewards increase the likelihood that actions will be emitted. PropositionsⅡ-A andⅡ-B on reciprocity borrow from Bronislaw Malinowski's and Claude Levi-Strauss's initial discussion as reinterpreted by Alvin Gorddner. Blau postulated, "the need to reciprocate for benefits received in order to continue receiving them serves as a 'starting mechanism' of social interaction.'' Equally important, once exchanges have occurred, a "fundamental and ubiquitous norm of ~reciprocity" emerges to regulate subsequent exchanges. Thus, inherent in the exchange process is a principle of reciprocity. Over time, and as the conditions of Principle Ⅰare met, a social "norm of reciprocity," whose violation brings about social disapproval and other negative sanctions, emerges in exchange relations.

Table 12.3 Blau's implicit Exchange Principles

Ⅰ Rationality Principle: The more profit people expect from one another in emitting a particular activity, the more likely they are to emit that activity.

Ⅱ. Reciprocity Principles:

A. The more people have exchanged rewards with one another the more likely are reciprocal obligations to emerge and guide subsequent exchanges among these people.

B. The more the reciprocal obligations of an exchange relationship are violated, the more disposed deprived parties are to sanction negatively those violating the norm of reciprocity.

Ⅲ Justice Principles:

A. The more exchange relations have been established, the more likely they are to be governed by norms of fair exchange.

B. The less norms of fairness are realized in an exchange, the more disposed deprived babies are to sanction negatively those violating the norms.

Ⅳ Marginal Utility Principle: The more expected rewards have been forthcoming from the emission of a particular activity, the less valuable the activity is and the less likely its emission is.

Ⅴ. imbalance Principle: The more stabilized and balanced are one set of exchange relations among social units, the more likely are other exchange relations to become imbalanced and unstable.

Blau recognized that people establish expectations about what level of"reward particular exchange relations should yield and that these expectations are normatively regulated. These norms are termed norms of fair exchange because they determine what the proportion of rewards to costs should be in a given exchange relation, Blau also asserted that aggression is forthcoming when these norms of" fair exchange are violated. These ideas are incorporated into Principles Ⅲ-A and Ⅲ-B and are termed the justice principles. Following economists' analyses of transactions in the marketplace, Blau introduced a principle on "marginal utility" (Proposition Ⅳ). The more a person has received a reward, the more satiated he or she is with that reward and the less valuable are further increments of the reward. Proposition V on imbalance completes the listing of Blau's abstract laws. For Blau, as for all exchange theorists, established exchange relations are seen to involve costs or alternative rewards foregone. Most actors must engage in more than one exchange relation, and so the balance and stabilization of one exchange relation is likely to create imbalance and strain in other necessary exchange relations. Blau believes that social life is thus filled with dilemmas in which people must successively trade off stability and balance in one exchange relation for strain in others as they attempt to cope with the variety of relations that they must maintain.

ELEMENTARY SYSTEMS OF EXCHANGE

Blau initiated his discussion of elementary exchange processes with the assumption that people enter into social exchange because they perceive the possibility of deriving rewards (Principle I). Blau labeled tiffs perception social attraction and postulated that, unless relationships involve such attraction, they are not relationships of exchange. In entering an exchange relationship, each actor assumes the perspective of another and thereby derives some perception of the other's needs. Actors then manipulate their presentation of self to convince one another that they have the valued qualities others appear to desire. In adjusting role behaviors in an effort to impress others with the resources that they have to offer, people operate under the principle of reciprocity, for. By indicating that one possesses valued qualities, each person is attempting to establish a claim on others for the receipt of rewards from them. All exchange operates under the presumption that people who bestow rewards will receive rewards in turn as payment for value received.

Actors attempt to impress one another through competition in which they reveal the rewards they have to offer in an effort to force others, in accordance with the norm of reciprocity, to reciprocate with an even more valuable reward. Social life is thus rife with people's competitive efforts to impress one another and thereby extract valuable rewards. But, as interaction proceeds, it inevitably becomes evident to the parties in an~ exchange that some people have more valued resources to offer than others, putting them in a unique position to extract rewards from all others who value the resources that they have to offer.

At this point in exchange relations, groups of individuals become differentiated by the resources they possess and the kinds of reciprocal demands they can make on others. Blau then asked an analytical question: What generic types or classes of rewards can those with resources extract in return for bestowing their valued resources on others? Blau conceptualized four general classes of such rewards: money, social approval, esteem or respect, and compliance. Although Blau did not make full use of his categorization of rewards, he offend some suggestive clues about how these categories can be incorporated into abstract theoretical statements,

Blau first ranked these generalized reinforcers by their value in exchange relations. In most social relations, money is an inappropriate reward and hence is the least valuable reward. Social approval is an appropriate reward, but for most humans it is not very valuable, thus forcing those who derive valued services to offer with great frequency the more valuable reward of esteem or respect to those providing valued services. In many situations, the services offered can co--and no more than respect and esteem from those receiving the benefit of these services. At times, however, the services offered are sufficiently valuable to require those receiving them to offer, in accordance with the principles of reciprocity and justice, the most valuable class of rewards--compliance with one's requests.

Table 12.4 Blau's Conditions for the Differentiation of Power in Social Exchange

Ⅰ. The fewer services people can supply in return for the receipt of particularly valued services, the more those providing these particularly valued services can extract compliance,

Ⅱ The fewer alternative sources of rewards people have, the more those~ providing valuable services~ can extract compliance,

Ⅲ The less those receiving valuable services from particular individuals can employ physical force and coercion, the more those providing the services can extract compliance,

Ⅳ. The less those receiving the valuable services can do without them, the more those providing the services can extract compliance.

When people can extract compliance in an exchange relationship, they have power. They have the capacity to withhold rewarding services and thereby punish or inflict heavy costs on those who might not comply To conceptualize the degree of power possessed by individuals, Blau formulated four general propositions that determine the capacity of powerful individuals to extract compliance. These are listed and reformulated inTable 12.4.

These four propositions list the conditions leading to differentiation of members in social groups by their power. To the extent that group members can supply some services in return, seek alternative rewards, potentially use physical force, or do without certain valuable services, individuals who can provide valuable services will be able to extract only esteem and approval from group members. Such groups will be differentiated by prestige rankings but not by power. Naturally, as Blau emphasized, most social groups reveal complex patterns of differentiation of power, prestige, and patterns of approval, but of particular interest to him are the dynamics involved in generating power, authority, and opposition.

Blau believed that, power differentials in groups create two contradictory forces: (1) strains toward integration and (2) strains toward opposition and conflict.

Strains Toward Integration

Differences in power inevitably create the potential for conflict. However, such potential is frequently suspended by a series of forces promoting the conversion of power into authority, in which subordinates accept as legitimate the leaders' demands for compliance. Principles Ⅱand Ⅲ inTable 12 3 denote two processes fostering such group integration: Exchange relations always operate under the presumption of reciprocity and justice, forcing those deriving valued services to provide other rewards in payment. In providing these rewards, subordinates are guided by norms of fair exchange, in which the costs that they incur in offering compliance are to be proportional to the value of the services that they receive from leaders. Thus, to the extent that actors engage in exchanges with leaders and to the degree that the services provided by leaders are highly valued, subordination must be accepted as legitimate in accordance with the norms of reciprocity and fairness that emerge in all exchanges. Under these conditions, groups elaborate additional norms specifying just how exchanges with leaders are to be conducted to regularize the requirements for reciprocity and to maintain fair rates of exchange. Leaders who conform to these emergent norms can usually assure themselves that their leadership will be considered legitimate. Blau emphasized that, if leaders abide by the norms regulating exchange of their services for compliance, norms carrying negative sanctions typically emerge among subordinates stressing the need for compliance to leaders' requests. Through this process, subordinates exercise considerable social control over one another's actions and thereby promote the integration of superordinate and subordinate segments of groupings.

Authority, therefore, "rests on the coupon norms~ in a collectivity of subordinates that constrain its individual members to conform to the orders of a superior.'' In many patterns of social organization, these norms simply emerge from the competitive exchanges among collective groups of actors. Frequently, however, for such "normative agreements" to be struck, participants in an exchange must be socialized into a common set of values that define not only what constitutes fair exchange in a given situation hut also the way such exchange should be institutionalized into norms for both leaders and subordinates. Although it is quite possible for actors to arrive at normative couscous in the course of the exchange process itself, an initial set of common values facilitates the legitimation of power. Actors can now enter into exchanges with a common definition of the situation, which can provide a general framework for the normative regulation of emerging power differentials. Without common values, the competition for power is likely to be severe. In the absence of guidelines about reciprocity and fair exchange, considerable strain and tension will persist as definitions of these are worked out. For Blau, then, legitimation "entails not merely tolerant approval but active confirmation and promotion of social patterns by common values, either preexisting ones or those that emerge in a collectivity in the course of social interaction?'

With the legitimation of power through the normative regulation of interaction, as confirmed by common values, the structure of collective organization is altered. One of the most evident changes is the decline in interpersonal competition, for now actors' presentations of self shift from a concern about impressing others with their valuable qualities to an emphasis on confirming their status as loyal group members. Subordinates accept their status and manipulate their role behaviors to ensure that they receive social approval from their peers as a reward for conformity to group norms. Leaders can typically assume a lower profile because they no longer must demonstrate their superior qualities in every encounter with subordinates especially because norms now define when and how they should extract conformity and esteem for providing their valued services. Thus, with the legitimation of power as authority, the interactive processes (involving the way group members define the situation and present themselves to others) undergo a dramatic change, reducing the degree of competition and thereby fostering group integration.

With these events, the amount of direct interaction between leaders and subordinates usually declines, because power and ranking no longer must be constantly negotiated. This decline in direct interaction marks the formation of distinct subgroupings as members interact with those of their own social rank, avoiding the costs of interacting with either their inferiors or their superiors. In interacting primarily among themselves, subordinates avoid the high costs of interacting with leaders, and, although social approval from their peers is not a particularly valuable reward, it can be extracted with comparatively few costs--thus allowing a sufficient profit. Conversely, leaders can avoid the high costs (of time and energy) of constantly competing and negotiating with inferiors regarding when and how compliance and esteem are to be bestowed on them. Instead, by having relatively limited and well-defined contact with subordinates, they can derive the high rewards that come from compliance and esteem without incurring excessive costs in interacting with subordinates--thereby allowing~for a profit.

Strains Toward Opposition

Thus far, Blau's exchange perspective is decidedly functional. Social exchange processes--attraction, competition, differentiation, and integration--are analyzed by how they contribute to creating a legitimated set of normatively regulated relations. Yet, Blau was keenly aware that social organization is always rife with conflict and opposition, creating an inevitable dialectic between integration and opposition in social structures.

Blau's exchange principles, summarized in Table 12.3, allow the conceptualization of these strains for opposition and conflict. As PrincipleⅡ-B on reciprocity documents, the failure to receive expected rewards in return for various activities leads actors to attempt to apply negative sanctions that, when ineffective, can drive people to violent retaliation against those who have denied them an expected reward. Such retaliation is intensified by the dynamics summarized in Principle Ⅲ-B on justice and fair exchange, because when those in power violate such norms, they inflict excessive costs on subordinates, creating a situation that, at a minimum, leads to attempts to sanction negatively and, at most, to retaliation. Finally, Principle Ⅴ on the inevitable imbalances emerging from multiple exchange relations emphasizes that to balance relations in one exchange context by meeting reciprocal obligations and conforming to norms of fairness is to put other relations into imbalance. Thus, the imbalances potentially encourage a cyclical process in which actors seek to balance previously unbalanced relations and thereby throw into imbalance currently balanced exchanges. In turn, exchange relations that are thrown into imbalance violate the norms of reciprocity and fair exchange, thus causing attempts at negative sanctioning and, under some conditions, retaliation. Blau posited, then, that sources of imbalance are built into all exchange relationships. When severely violating norms of reciprocity and fair exchange, these imbalances can lead to open conflict among individuals in group contexts.

In Table 12.5, Blau's ideas are summarized as propositions. To appreciate the degree to which these propositions resemble those in conflict theory, we can compare these propositions with those in Tables 10.1 and 10.5 on. For, in the end, dialectical conflict theory and exchange theory are converging perspectives. It could be argued that conflict theory is a derivative of exchange theory, although many would argue just the reverse. In either case, the perspectives converge.

From the discursive context in which the propositions in Table 12.5 are imbedded comes a conceptualization of opposition, Blau hypothesized that, the more imbalanced exchange relations are experienced collectively, the greater is the sense of deprivation and the greater is the potential for opposition. Although he did not explicitly state the case, Blau appeared to argue that increasing ideological codification of deprivations, the formation of group solidarity, and the emergence of conflict as a way of life-that is, members' emotional involvement in and commitment to opposition to those with power--will increase the intensity of the opposition. These propositions offered a suggestive lead for conceptualizing inherent processes of opposition

in exchange relations.

EXCHANGE SYSTEMS AND MACROSTRUCTURE

Although the general processes of attraction, competition, differentiation, integration, and opposition are evident in the exchange among macrostructures, Blau saw several fundamental differences between these exchanges and those among microstructures.

1. In complex exchanges among macrostructures, the significance of" shared values" increases, for through such values indirect exchanges among macrostructures are mediated.

2. Exchange networks among macrostructures are typically institutionalized.Although spontaneous exchange is a ubiquitous feature of social life, there are usually well-established historical arrangements that circumscribe the basic exchange processes of attraction, competition, differentiation, integration, and even opposition among collective units,

3. Macrostructures are themselves the product of more elementary exchange processes, and so the analysis of macrostructures requires the analysis of more than one level of social organization.

Table 12.5 Blau's Propositions on Exchange Conflict

Ⅰ. The probability of opposition to those with power increases when exchange relations between super- and subordinates become imbalanced, with imbalance increasing when

A. Norms of reciprocity are violated by the superordinates.

B. Norms of fair exchange are violated by sugerordinates.

Ⅱ. The probability of opposition increases as the sense of deprivation among subordinates escalates, with this sense of deprivation increasing when subordinates can experience collectively their sense of deprivation, Such collective experience increases when

A. Subordinates are ecologically and spatially concentrated.

B. Subordinates can communicate with one another.

Ⅲ The more subordinates can collectively experience deprivations in exchange relations with superordinates, the more likely are they to codify ideologically their deprivations and the more likely are they to oppose those with power.

Ⅳ The more deprivations of subordinates are ideologically codified, the greater is their sense of solidarity and the more likely are they to oppose those with power.

Ⅴ The greater the sense of solidarity is among subordinates, the more they can define their opposition as a noble and worthy cause and the more likely they are to oppose those with power.

Ⅵ. The greater is the sense of ideological solidarity, the more likely are subordinates to view opposition as an end in itself, and the more likely are they to oppose those with power.

Mediating Values

Blau believed that the "interpersonal attraction" of elementary exchange among individuals is replaced by shared values at the macro level. These values can be conceptualized as "media of social transactions" in that they provide a common set of standards for conducting the complex chains of indirect exchanges among social structures and their individual members. Blau views such values as providing effective mediation of complex exchanges because the individual members of social structures have usually been socialized into a set of common values, leading them to accept these values as appropriate. Furthermore, when coupled with codification into laws and enforcement procedures by those groups and organizations with power, shared values provide a means for mediating the complex and indirect exchanges among the macrostructures of large scale systems. In mediating indirect exchanges among groups and organizations, shared values provide standards for the calculation of (a) expected rewards, (b) reciprocity, and (c) fair exchange.

Thus, because individuals are not the units of complex exchanges, Blau emphasized that, for complex patterns of social organization to emerge and persist, a "functional equivalent" of direct interpersonal attraction must exist. Values assume this function and ensure that exchange can proceed in accordance with the principles presented in Table 12.3. Even when complex exchanges do involve people, their interactions are frequency so protracted and indirect that one individual's rewards are contingent on others who are far removed, requiring that common values guide and regulate the exchanges.

Institutionalization

Whereas values facilitate processes of indirect exchange among diverse types of social units, institutionalization denotes those processes that regularize and stabilize complex exchange processes, As people and various forms of collective organization become dependent on particular networks of indirect exchange for expected rewards, pressures for formalizing exchange networks through explicit norms increase. Tiffs formalization and regularization of complex exchange systems can be effective in three minimal conditions: (1) The formalized exchange networks must have profitable payoffs for most parties to the exchange. (2) Most individuals organized into collective units must have internalized through prior socialization the mediating values used to build exchange networks. And, (3) those units with power in the exchange system must receive a level of rewards that moves them to seek actively the formalization of rules governing exchange relations.

Institutions are historical products whose norms and underlying mediating values are handed down from one generation to another, thereby limiting and circumscribing the kinds of indirect exchange networks that can emerge. Institutions exert a kind of external constraint on individuals and various types of collective units, bending exchange processes to fit their proscriptions and proscriptions. Institutions thus represent sets of relatively stable and general norms regularizing different patterns of indirect and complex exchange relations among diverse social units.

Blau stressed that all institutionalized exchange systems reveal a counter-institutional component "consisting of those basic values and ideals that have not been realized and have not found expression in explicit institutional forms, and which are the ultimate source of social change.'' To the extent that these values remain unrealized in institutionalized exchange relations, individuals who have internalized them will derive little payoff from existing institutional arrangements and will therefore feel deprived, seeking alternatives to dominant institutions. These unrealized values, even when codified into an opposition ideology advocating open revolution, usually contain at least some of the ideals and ultimate objectives legitimated by the prevailing culture. This indicates that institutional arrangements "contain the seeds of their potential destruction" by falling to meet all the expectations of reward raised by institutionalized values.

Blau did not enumerate the conditions for mobilization of individuals into conflict groups, but his scheme explicitly denoted the source of conflict and change: Counter-institutional values whose failure of realization by dominant institutional arrangements creates deprivations that can lead to conflict and change in social systems. Such tendencies for complex exchange systems to generate opposition can be explained by the basic principles of exchange. When certain mediating values are not institutionalized in a social system, exchange relations will not be viewed as reciprocated by those who have internalized these values. Thus, in accordance with Blau's principles on reciprocity (see Table 12.3), these segments of a collectivity are more likely to feel deprived and to seek ways of retaliating against the dominant institutional arrangements, which, from the perspective dictated by their values, have failed to reciprocate. For those who have internalized values that are not institutionalized, it is also likely that perceptions of fair exchange have been violated, leading them, in accordance with the principles of justice, to attempt to sanction negatively those arrangements that violate alternative norms of fair exchange. Finally, in institutionalized exchange networks, the balancing of exchange relations with some segments of a collectivity inevitably creates imbalances in relations with other segments (the imbalance principle in Table 12.3), thereby violating norms of reciprocity and fairness and setting into motion forces of opposition.

Unlike direct interpersonal exchanges, however, opposition in complex exchange systems is between large collective units of organization, which, in their internal dynamics, reveal their own propensities for integration and opposition. This requires that the analysis of integration and opposition in complex exchange networks he attuned to various levels of social organization. Such analysis needs to show, in particular, how exchange processes among macrostructures, whether for integration or for opposition, are partly influenced by the exchange processes occurring among their constituent substructures.

Levels of Social Organization

Blau believes the "dynamics of macrostructures rest on the manifold interdependences between the social forces within and among their substructures,'' Blau simplifies the complex analytical tasks of examining the dynamics of substructures by positing that organized collectivities, especially formal organizations, are the most important substructures in the analysis of macrostructures.Thus, the theoretical analysis of complex exchange systems among macrostructures requires that primary attention be drawn to the relations of attraction, competition, differentiation, integration, and opposition among various types of complex organizations. In emphasizing the pivotal significance of complex organizations, Blau posited a particular image of society that should guide the ultimate construction of sociological theory.

Organizations in a society must typically derive rewards from one another, thus creating a situation in which they are both attracted to, and in competition with, one another, Hierarchical differentiation between successful and less successful organizations operating in the same sphere emerges from this cometition. Such differentiation usually creates strains toward specialization in different fields among less successful organizations as they seek new sources of resources. To provide effective means for integration, separate political organizations must also emerge to regulate their exchanges. These political organizations possess power and are viewed as legitimate only as long as they are considered by individuals and organizations to follow the dictates of shared cultural values. Typically, political organizations arc charged with several objectives: (1) regulating complex networks of indirect exchange by the enactment of laws; (2) controlling through law competition among dominant organizations, thereby ensuring the latter of scarce resources; and (3) protecting existing exchange networks among organizations, especially those with power, from encroachment on these rewards by organizations opposing the current distribution of resources.

MICROEXCHANGE

Strains toward integration

(creation of organized

colleCtivity)

1. Legitimation of power

through authority

2. Subordinate

social control

Social ~ Exchange Competition for Differentation

attraction of rewards power 1. Esteem

among 1. Impression 2. Power Potential conflict

individuals management

1. Intrinsic 2 Displays of

2. Extrinsic qualities Strains toward opposion

1. Denial of expected

rewards

2 Violation of norms

of fair exchange

3. Failure to reciprocate

4. Blau's conditions

listed in Table 8.3

Socialization Norrms of

into common " fair

values exchange"

Cultural

and legal

prohibitions From other

micro~xchanges

FIGURE 12.3 Blau's Image of Social Organization
MACROEXCHANGE

Strains for integration

among organization

1.Political coalitions

2.Resistance to change

3.Legitimation

Social Exchange Competition Differentiation

attraction of rewards for power Potential conflict

among

organized

collectives

Strains for opposition to

new levels of

organized among

collectivenes

Mediating 1. Norms of

values provide "fair

basis for exchange"

attraction 2 Political~

authority

3. Laws

FIGURE 12.3 continued

Blau believes that differentiation and specialization occur among macrostructures because of the competition among organizations in a society. Although mediating values allow differentiation and specialization among organizations to occur, it is also necessary for separate political organizations to exist and regularize, through laws and the use of force, existent patterns of exchange among other organizations. Such political organizations will be viewed as legitimate as long as they normatively regulate exchanges that reflect the tenets of mediating values and protect the payoffs for most organizations, especially the most powerful. The existence of political authority inevitably encourages opposition movements, however, for now opposition groups have a clear target--the political organizations--against which to address their grievances. As long as political authority remains diffuse, opposition organizations can only compete unsuccessfully against various dominant organizations. With the legitimation of clear-cut political organizations charged with preserving current patterns of organization, opposition movements can concentrate their energies against one organization, the political system,

In addition to providing deprived groups with a target for their aggressions, political organizations inevitably must aggravate the deprivations of various segments of a population because political control involves exerting constraints and distributing resources unequally. Those segments of the population that must bear the brunt of such constraint and unequal distribution usually experience great deprivation of the principles of reciprocity and fair exchange. which, under various conditions, creates a movement against the existing political authorities. To the extent that this organized opposition forces redistribution of rewards, other segments of the population are likely to feel constrained and deprived, leading them to organize into an opposition movement. The organization of political authority ensures that, in accordance with the principle of imbalance, attempts to balance one set of exchange relations among organizations throw into imbalance other exchange relations, causing the formation of opposition organizations. Thus, built into the structure of political authority in a society are inherent forces of opposition that give society a dialectical and dynamic character.

BLAU'S IMAGE OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Figure 12.3 summarizes Blau's view of social organization at the micro level and the macro-organizational level. Clearly, the same processes operate at both levels of exchange: (1) social attraction, (2) exchange of rewards, (3) competition for power, (4) differentiation, (5) strains toward integration, and (6) strains toward opposition. Thus, the Simmelian thrust of Blau's effort is clear because he sees the basic form of exchange as much the same, regardless of whether the units involved in the exchange are individuals or collective units of organization. There are, of course, some differences between exchange among individuals and organizational units, and these are noted across the bottom of the figure.

CONCLUSION

Despite Blau's effort to synthesize elements of functional and conflict theory, his approach did not endure. Indeed, even Blau himself increasingly believed that the isomorphism between micro-level and macro-level exchange processes was forced. And in the end, he abandoned the exchange approach at the macro-structural level (his alternative theory is presented on the Web site for this book), but still, more than any theorist of the time, Blau recognizes that exchange and conflict theory converge. Exchange processes produce both institutionalized patterns and forces of opposition to these patterns, primarily because exchange generates inequalities in power. But subsequent theorists-- who drew more from either network theory or more purely economic approaches--never followed these leads. Let us now turn to the profile of these approaches.

Exchange Network Theory

In the early 1960s, Richard M. Emerson followed Georg Simmel's lead in seeking a formal sociology of basic exchange processes. In essence, Emerson asked this: Could exchange among individual and collective actors be understood by the same basic principles? Emerson provided a creative answer to this question by synthesizing behaviorist psychology and sociological network analysis. The psychology gave him the driving force behind exchanges, whereas the network sociology allowed him to conceptualize the form of social relations among both individual and collective actors in the same terms. What emerged was exchange network analysis that, after Emerson's early death, was carried forward by colleagues and students, particularly Karen S. Cook.

Emerson borrowed the basic ideas of behaviorist psychology, but unlike many working in this tradition, he became more concerned with the form of relationships among the actors rather than the properties and characteristics of the actors themselves. This simple shift in emphasis profoundly affected how he built his exchange theory. The most significant departure from earlier exchange theories is the concern with why actors entered an exchange relationship in the first place given their values and preferences was replaced by an emphasis on the existing exchange relationship and what is likely to transpire in this relationship in the future. Emerson believed that if an exchange relationship exists, this means that actors~ are willing to exchange valued resources, and the goal of theory is not so much to understand how this relationship originally came about but, instead, what will happen to it over time. Thus, the existing exchange relationship between actors--rather than the actors themselves--becomes the unit of sociological analysis. In Emerson's eye, then, social structure is composed of exchanges among actors seeking to enhance the value of their resources. And so behaviorism, which posited a dynamic but atomized actor, was blended with network sociology, which conceptualized structure without dynamic actors.

RICHARD EMERSON'S CORE IDEAS

The key dynamics in Emerson's theory are (1) power, (2) power use, and (3) balancing. Actors have power to the extent that others depend on them for resources; hence, the power of Actor A over actor B is determined by the dependence of B on A for a resource that B values, and vice versa. Dependence, which is the ultimate source of power in Emerson's scheme, is determined by the degree to which (a) resources sought from other actors are highly valued and (b) alternatives for these resources are few or too costly to pursue. Under these conditions, where B values A’s resources and where no attractive alternatives are~ available, the B'S dependence on A is high; hence, the power of A over B is high. Conversely, where B has resources that A values and where alternatives for A are limited, B has power over A. Thus, both actors can reveal a high degree of mutual dependence, giving each absolute power over the other and, thereby, increasing structural cohesion because of the high amounts of total or average power in the exchange relationship.

When one actor has more~ power than an exchange partner, however, this actor will engage in power use and exploit its exchange partner's dependence to secure additional resources or to reduce the costs it must incur in getting resources from this dependent partner. If A has power over B because of B's dependency on A, then A has the power advantage and will use it.

Such relations are power imbalanced, and Emerson felt that imbalance and power use would activate what he termed balancing operations. In a situation where A has a power advantage over B, B has four options:

1. Actor B can value less the resources provided by A.

2. B can find alternative sources for the resources provided by A.

3. B can increase the value of the resources it provides A.

4. B can find ways to reduce A'S alternatives for the resources that B provides.

All these balancing mechanisms are designed to reduce dependency on A, or alternatively, to increase A's dependency on B in ways that balance the exchange relationship and give it a certain equilibrium.

Exchange in networks can be of two general types: (1) those where actors negotiate and bargain over the distribution of resources; and (2) those where actors do not negotiate but, instead, sequentially provide resources with the expectation that these rewards will be reciprocated. This distinction between what can be termed negotiated exchanges and reciprocal exchanges is important because it reflects different types of exchanges in the real world. When actors negotiate, they try to influence each other before the resources are divided, as when labor and management negotiate a contract or when individuals argue about whether to go to the movies or to the beach. The dynamics of negotiated exchange are distinctive because they typically take longer to execute, because they generally involve considerably more explicit awareness and calculation of costs and benefits, and because they are often part of conflicts among parties who seek a compromise acceptable to all. In contrast, reciprocal exchanges involve the giving of resources unilaterally by one party to another with, of course, some expectation that valued resources will be given back, as occurs when a person initiates affection with the intent that the other will respond with the same emotion. Reciprocal exchanges are thus constructed in sequences of contingent rewarding, whereas as negotiated exchanges unfold in a series of offers and counter-offers before resources are

distributed.

These seminal ideas form the core of Emerson's theoretical scheme. Before his untimely death, Emerson had been collaborating with Karen Cook ~and their mutual students to test the implications of these ideas for different types of networks. The basic goal was to determine how the structure of the network--that is, the pattern of connections among actors--influences, and is influenced by, the distribution of power, power use. and balancing.

STRUCTURE, NETWORKS, AND EXCHANGE

Emerson's portrayal of social networks will be simplified; for our purposes here the full details of his network terminology need not be addressed. Although Emerson followed the conventions of graph theory and developed a number of definitions, only two definitions are critical:

Actors: Points A, B, C, n in a network of relations. Different letters represent actors with different resources to exchange. The same letters-- that is, A₁, A₂, A₃, and so forth--represent different actors exchanging similar~ resources.

Exchange relations: A--B, A--B---C, A₁--A₂. and other patterns of ties that can connect different actors to each other, forming a network of relations.

The next conceptual task was to visualize the forms of networks that could be represented with these two definitions. For each basic form. new corollaries and theorems were added as Emerson documented the way in which the basic processes of dependence, power, and balance operate. His discussion was only preliminary, but it illustrated his perspective's potential.

B1

A B2

B3

FIGURE 12.6 A Unilateral Monopoly

Several basic social forms are given special treatment: (a) unilateral monopoly, (b) division of labor, (c) social circles, and (d) stratification.

Unilateral Monopoly

1n the network illustrated in Figure 12.6, actor A is a source of valuable resources for actors B₁, B₂, and B₃. Actors B₁, B₂, and B₃. provide rewards for A, but, because A has multiple sources for rewards and the Bs have only A as a source for their rewards, the situation is a unilateral monopoly

Such a structure often typifies interpersonal as~ well as intercorporate units. For example, A could be a female date for three different men, B₁, B₂, and B₃.Or A could be a corporation that is the sole supplier of raw resources for three other manufacturing corporations, B₁, B₂, and B₃. Or A could be a governmental body and the Bs could be dependent agencies. An important feature of the unilateral monopoly is that, by Emerson's definitions, it is imbalanced, and thus, its structure is subject to change.

Emerson developed additional corollaries and theorems to account for the various ways this unilateral monopoly can change and become balanced. For instance, if no A₂, A₃,... , A_n exist and the 13s cannot communicate with each other, the following proposition would apply (termed by Emerson Exploitation TypeⅠ):

The more an exchange relation between A and multiple Bs approximates a unilateral monopoly, the more additional resources each B will introduce into the exchange relation, with A's resource utilization remaining constant or decreasing.

Emerson saw this adaptation as short-lived because the network will become even more unbalanced. If the Bs can survive as an entity without resources from A, then a new proposition applies (termed by Emerson Exploitation TypeⅡ):

The more an exchange relation between A and multiple Bs approximates a unilateral monopoly, the less valuable to Bs are the resources provided by A across continuing transactions.

This proposition thus predicts that balancing operation 1-a decrease in the value of the reward for those at a power disadvantage -~will balance a unilateral monopoly where no alternative sources of rewards exist and where~Bs cannot effectively communicate.

Other balancing operations are possible if other conditions exist. If Bs can communicate, they might form a coalition (balancing operation 4) and require~ A to balance exchanges with a united coalition or Bs. If one B can provide a resource not possessed by the other Bs, then a division of labor among Bs (operations 3 and 4) would emerge. Or if another source of resources, A₂, can be found (operation 2). then the power advantage of A₁ is decreased. Each of these possible changes will occur under varying conditions, but these propositions provide a reason for the initiation of changes--a reason derived from basic principles of operant psychology (the details of these derivations are not discussed here).