Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms
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Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms (1961) is a book by George C. Homans.
He wrote this book in 1961 and revised it in 1974. This was based on the principles of behavioral psychology, and helped explain the "sub-institutional," or elementary, forms of social behavior in small groups. This explanation of social behavior first appeared in an article Homans published titled "Social Behavior as Exchange" in 1958. He believed his Exchange Theory was derived from both behavioral psychology and elementary economics. Homans had come to the view that theory should be expressed as a deductive system, in this respect falling under the influence of the logical empiricist philosophers of that period. Substantively, he argued that a satisfactory explanation in the social sciences is based upon "propositions"—principles—about individual behavior that are drawn from the behavioral psychology of the time. Homans didn't believe that new propositions are needed to explain social behavior. The laws of individual behavior developed by Skinner in his study of pigeons explain social behavior as long as we take into account the complications of mutual reinforcement.
"Social Behavior is an exchange of goods, material goods, but also non-material ones, such as the symbols of approval or prestige. Persons that give much to others try to get much from them, and persons that get much from others are under pressure to give much to them." (Homans 1958:606). Social behavior as exchange means that a plurality of individuals, each postulated to behave according to the stated behavioral principles, form a system of interaction. Social approval is the basic reward that people can give to one another. In much greater detail, he developed this approach in his book Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms (1961, revised 1974). Homans gives an example of this type of social behavior below:
"Suppose that two men are doing paperwork jobs in an office. According to the office rules, each should do his job by himself, or, if he needs help, he should consult the supervisor. One of the men, whom we shall call Person, is not skillful at the work and would get it done better and faster if he got help from time to time. In spite of the rules he is reluctant to go to the supervisor, for to confess his incompetence might hurt his chances for promotion. Instead he seeks out the other man, whom we shall call Other for short, and asks him for help. Other is more experienced at the work than is Person; he can do his work well and quickly and be left with time to spare, and he has reason to suppose that the supervisor will not go out of his way to look for a breach of rules. Other gives Person help and in return Person gives Other thanks and expressions of approval. The two men have exchanged help and approval." (Homans, 1961:31-32)
Focusing on this situation, and basing his ideas on Skinner's findings, Homans developed several propositions.
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The 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." (Homans, 1974:16)
In terms of his "Person-Other" example, this proposition means that a person is more likely to ask others for advice if past advice has been useful. Also, the more often a person received useful advice in the past, the more often they will request more advice and be willing to give advice. The success proposition involves three stages: (1) a person's action, (2) a rewarded result, and (3) a repetition of the original action.
The 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." (Homans, 1974:23)
One may look at Homans's example: If in the past, the Person and Other found the giving and getting of advice rewarding, they are likely to engage in similar actions and in similar situations in the future. Homans's example: "A fisherman who has cast his line into a dark pool and has caught a fish becomes more apt to fish in dark pools again" (1974:23). Homans was interested in the process of generalization, or the tendency to extend behavior to similar circumstances; but he was also concerned with the process of discrimination. For example, Person and Other may only give useful advice in the same room as in the past because they think that particular situation brought the most success.
The Value Proposition
"The more valuable to a person is the result of his action, the more likely he is to perform the action." (Homans, 1974:25)
If the rewards each offers to the other are considered valuable, the actors are more likely to perform the desired behaviors than they are if the rewards are not valuable. Homans introduced the concepts of rewards and punishments. Rewards are actions with positive values and punishments are actions with negative values. Rewards can either be materialistic (money) or altruistic (helping others) He found punishment to be an inefficient means of getting people to change their behavior, because people may react in undesirable ways to punishment.
The 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 him." (Homans, 1974:29)
In the office, Person and Other may reward each other so often for giving and getting advice that the rewards cease to be valuable to them. Time is important—people are less likely to become satiated if particular rewards are stretched over a long period of time. Homans then defined cost and profit. Cost of any behavior is defined as the rewards lost in forgoing alternative lines of action. Profit in social exchange is seen as the greater number of rewards gained over costs incurred.
The Aggression-Approval Propositions
"Proposition A: When a person's action does not receive the rewards as expected, or receives punishment he did not expect, he will be angry. He becomes more likely to perform aggressive Template:Sic, and the results of such behavior become more valuable to him." (Homans, 1974:37)
If Person does not get the advice they expected and Other does not receive the praise they anticipated, both are likely to be angry.
"Proposition B: When a person's action receives the reward they expected, especially a greater reward than they expected, or does not receive punishment he expected, he will be pleased. He becomes more likely to perform approving behavior, and the results of such behavior become more valuable to him." (Homans, 1974:39)
When Person gets the advice they expect, and Other gets the praise they expect, both are more likely to get or give advice. Proposition A on aggression-approval refers to negative emotions, whereas Proposition B deals with more positive emotions.
The Rationality Proposition
"In choosing between alternative actions, a person will choose that one for which, as perceived by him at the time, the value, V, of the result, multiplied by the probability, p, of getting the result, is the greater." (Homans, 1974:43)
When earlier propositions rely on behaviorism, the rationality proposition demonstrates the influence of rational choice theory on Homans's approach. In economic terms, actors who act in accord with the rationality proposition are maximizing their utilities. People examine and make calculations about alternative actions open to them. They compare the amount of rewards associated with each course of action and calculate the likelihood that they will receive the rewards. In other words, there is a relationship between the value of the reward and the likelihood of the attainment. The rationality proposition tells us that people will perform an action depending of their perception of the probability of success. Durkheim agreed with Homans's understanding of rationality. He believed that rationalism is an aspect of individualism. Durkheim said that all development of individualism has the effect of opening moral consciousness to new ideas and rendering it more demanding. Homans worked off of Durkheim's thoughts throughout the development of certain propositions.
