(First published on Daily Kos, Wednesday September 17, 2014)
The foundation for evo-exchange theory is the proposition that people interact with other people largely on the basis of the benefits and costs they expect to receive from an interaction. The benefits can be economic in nature, such as food, shelter, money, and material comforts. The benefits also can be social in nature, i.e., benefits derived from the social interaction itself. Social benefits would include things like security, recognition, information, privileges, the arts, and various other psychological and emotional gratifications. At the same time, people are mindful of the economic and social costs associated with interactions, such as monetary support and exclusion from other potential relationships. This theory proposes that people interact with the expectation that the benefits of the relationship will outweigh its costs. It's basically the ancient "pleasure versus pain" calculation, with added complexity due to the evolution of our brains.
You can see how, from this perspective, expectations constitute a critical element in social interactions. So, how do we develop our expectations?
Biological Inclinations
Scientific evidence suggests that biology is a significant element in forming our expectations. For example, experiments have demonstrated that "reciprocity" is a general principle of human behavior: one individual's beneficial action toward a second individual is followed by the second individual directing a beneficial action toward the first individual. It's such a familiar principle that we have English idioms for it, such as, "I scratch your back, you scratch mine." And humans aren't the only ones who honor this principle. Experiments have found that rats also practice reciprocity. So the primary expectation of exchange -- reciprocity -- likely has a biological origin.
Science is also uncovering biological differences in the brains of "Conservatives" and "Liberals" which likely affect our expectations, as well. It has been reported that the brains of Conservatives have larger amygdala, a portion of the brain associated with anxiety, and smaller anterior cingulates, a part which has been associated with courage. It is suggested that this could explain why Conservatives are more conformist. I suspect there is also an association with authoritarianism. On the other hand, the brains of Liberals have been found to contain DRD4, a dopamine receptor gene, a variant of which has been associated with novelty-seeking behavior. It has been suggested, therefore, that the presence of this gene would incline one to be open to novel alternative behaviors. As such, these organic and genetic differences can play a role in people having different expectations of social exchanges.
Social Learning
Biology is not everything, of course. One of the hallmarks of humanity has been the extent to which we can develop tools, arts and ideas. We can take whole sets of ideas and weave them together into an "ideology," or system of beliefs. Then, as shown in Social Learning experiments, these ideas -- including ideas relating to expectations -- can be conveyed to members of our social groups through instruction by, and observation of, other group members.
Sociologist Gerhard Lenski has identified the social group's ideology as the basis for member expectations, and there certainly is evidence to support this. For example, there once was a social group in the U.S. known as the "Shakers." "Shaker" ideology included core beliefs in celibacy and communal living. Therefore, members of Shaker communities had to expect that they would not be finding sexual partners in the community, and that they would not be accumulating personal wealth.
But research has found that it's usually a minority of the group -- mostly the power elite -- which wholly subscribes to the "dominant" ideology. You can see this in the distinction between what the Vatican declares to be official Catholic doctrine and the actual range of beliefs among U.S. Catholics. Most people operate with a less coherent hodge-podge of ideology and extraneous ideas, beliefs and values: a "worldview."
Moreover, a group's professed ideology may give you a pretty good idea about the expectations of its members, but there are likely to be components of the population whose expectations differ significantly.
Furthermore, culture is generally dynamic, rather than static. Some parts change, to adapt to new environmental, technological and social conditions. I think this is what anthropologists call "Cultural Evolutionism."
Personal Experience and Observation
Political Scientist Ted Robert Gurr agrees that ideology is one source of expectations, but he believes there are additional sources. For the sake of brevity, I see his additional sources as falling into two categories: experience and observation. In the first case, the benefits that people experience for themselves become the standard for their expectations of future social exchanges. In the second case, people also set their expectations on the basis of benefits they observe other people receiving.
The establishment of expectations regarding social exchanges has a significant consequence. When group members observe that they are not receiving the benefits they expected, they become frustrated. Psychologist Leonard Berkowitz has studied the consequences of such frustration and arrived at the following conclusions:
"...when people expect to reach a certain goal or to obtain a certain reward, they are basically anticipating the pleasures this goal or reward would bring them. Furthermore, the greater the pleasure they are expecting, the more they will be provoked when their hopes are dashed." [p. 36]
"...frustration produces an instigation to aggression. The negative affect is the fundamental spur to the aggressive inclination." [p. 44]
"... I'm convinced that we see this type of reaction in many different areas of life, and I also think that this phenomenon is involved in the social unrest and even revolutions that can occur when rapidly rising expectations are not met." [p. 37]
I believe that when people protest against injustice or complain about unfairness, this is what they mean: they are not experiencing, or they anticipate not receiving, the level of economic and/or social benefits that they expect.
Like Dr. Berkowitz, I'm convinced that this frustration-aggression association can be used to explain and predict a wide variety of social conflict. Ted Robert Gurr, Jack Goldstone and the Feierabends have used this principle to develop predictive hypotheses concerning revolutions, rebellions, political violence, internal wars and other forms of civil strife.
I think there are even more fields to which it can be applied, and I hope to explore some in future diaries.
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