Blau – a sociological perspective on exchange

“Blau’s model of social exchange is the behavior of economic man; Homans’ is the be-havior of the economic pigeon” (Ehek, 1974, 170).

“[...] As contrasted with its economic aspects social exchange serves two general func-tions – establishing bonds of friendship and establishing superordination over others, contradictory as these two consequences seem” (Chadwick-Jones, 1976, 293).

In his work “Exchange and Power in Social Life”, Blau (1964, 2) attempts to answer the question “how social life becomes organized into increasingly complex structures of asso-ciations among men”. His aim is not to reduce his analysis to face-to-face relations, but to include social groups and institutions in order to explain social structures. These, however, have to be explained with regard to the dyadic relationships, “in which they are rooted” (Blau, 1964, 3). Relationships play a crucial role for the production and reproduction of social struc-tures. “Emergent properties are essentially relationships between elements in a structure. The relationships are not contained in the elements, though they could not exist without them, and they define the structure” (Blau, 1964, 2). With this concept of social structure, he expands Homans’ exchange theory “beyond subinstitutional phenomena” (Cook and Whitmeyer, 1992, 111).

Blau sees the crucial source of emergent properties in social exchange¹¹. Structural charac-teristics develop out of social exchange, whereas the existing social positions of giver and recipient determine the nature of the exchange relation (Chadwick-Jones, 1976, 299). In con-trast to Homans, he does not consider exchange as an event affecting individuals separately.

He defines the exchange between individuals as an exchange relation, which “is the joint product of the actions of both individuals” (Blau, 1964, 4). To refer again to the experimental design on which Homans’ theory is based, Blau is interested in the pigeon’s as well as the researcher’s behavior. Within a social relation, individuals are dependent on each other, or – more precisely – on the other’s resources. The more they exchange valued resources, the more they become interdependent on each other (Blau, 1964, 107).

“‘Social exchange’, as the term is used here, refers to voluntary actions of individuals that are motivated by the returns they are expected to bring and typically do in fact bring from others” (Blau, 1964, 91). Instead of the behavioral principles formulated by Homans, Blau introduces micro-economic reasoning (Cook and Whitmeyer, 1992, 111). Of course, Homans also stresses the motivational aspect of individual behavior, at least more than behavioral sci-entists do, but he nevertheless reduces his analysis to elementary behavior. Blau’s concept of exchange goes beyond elementary behavior since he defines the actions of an individual as

11In order not to call every relationship an exchange relation, Blau defines two aspects, exchange relations involve: (1) conscience and (2) voluntary action (Chadwick-Jones, 1976, 293).

voluntary and motivated by his or her expectations. Ehek vulgarizes Blau’s micro-economic perspective on individuals by saying that in social exchange relations “nothing goes for noth-ing” (Ehek, 1974, 169). The main resources aimed at by individuals are approval and ad-vantages. For example, a person helps out their neighbor with tools because he aims at his approval of being a helpful neighbor. The neighbor offers approval because he aims at an ad-vantage, i.e. getting the needed tools. Blau (1964, 105) points out that approval and advantage are generally contradictory, so that individuals often get advantages in one exchange (work) to gain approval in others (friends, family). Like Homans, Blau also uses the concept of rewards and costs. Costs which arise in providing social rewards in exchange for others are defined as

“investment costs” (time and energy spent), “direct costs” (produced directly through the ex-change), and “opportunity costs” (investing in one exchange relation reduces the opportunity to invest in others) (Blau, 1964, 101). Rewards can be extrinsic (goods, services, money) or intrinsic (compliment). Intrinsic rewards are often exchanged in intimate relationships, where the relationship itself is in a way rewarding (Chadwick-Jones, 1976, 278).

Similarly to L´evi-Strauss and Mauss, Blau’s social exchange theory features trust and friend-ship as central aspects. While trust is a general characteristic of social groups in the collec-tivistic approaches of the former, trust as well as the norm of reciprocity have to be devel-oped through social exchange (Ehek, 1974, 175-176). Thus, social exchange is an important

“tool” for building trusting and stable relations. Since the norm of reciprocity emerges from exchange, social relations tend toward a balance between giving and receiving. But what hap-pens, when an imbalance in this interdependence occurs? A social relation is imbalanced if one person fails to return resources given to them. This unreciprocated exchange then leads to differences in power and status (Blau, 1964, 7). According to Blau (1964, 117), Weber’s definition of power is crucial for exchange relations. Weber (1980, 28) defines power as “die Chance, innerhalb einer sozialen Beziehung den eigenen Willen auch gegen Widerstreben durchzusetzen”. Power incorporates both negative sanctions or punishment (coercive power) and influence (rewards) (Blau, 1964, 116). In social relations, balances and imbalances of giving and receiving lead to cooperation as well as conflict.

“Although there is a strain toward reciprocity in social relations and a strain toward equi-librium in social structures, the same forces that restore balance or equiequi-librium in one respect are imbalancing or disequilibrating forces in others, which means that the very processes of adjustment create imbalances requiring further adjustments” (Blau, 1964, 7).

Whereas Homans defines status and power as already existing before an exchange, which is then only a “forum for their validation” (Ehek, 1974, 182), Blau’s power and status are prod-ucts of social exchange. Blau (1964, 115) defines power as “all kinds of influence between persons or groups, including those exercised in exchange transactions, where one induces oth-ers to accede to his wishes by rewarding them for doing so”. Power is not a poth-ersonal property,

but an asymmetrical social relation. If the exchange is unreciprocated, the giver will have higher status and the power to manipulate exchange conditions in his favor. The giver’s power base is a kind of overinvestment in the relationship. He or she has the possibility to obtain power by making contributions to the group which lead to the achievement of the collective or individual goals striven for by its members. “The ability to distribute valuable possessions becomes a socially defined mark of superiority” (Blau, 1964, 109). If they fail to return the resource, they become dependent on the giver. But how could they, according to Blau, main-tain their independence?

Since social exchange relations are embedded in a larger social environment (Ehek, 1974, 177), alternative exchange relations play a crucial role for social relations with regard to power imbalances. “If the dyad is examined, then it should not be discussed in isolation, he argues, from the alternative social opportunities which each member may have outside this particular pair relationship” (Chadwick-Jones, 1976, 284). Alternative social relations provide power to the individual. The person with alternative exchange relations “has a choice of breaking up his dyadic exchange relations with his exchange partners and forming new dyadic relationships with others” (Ehek, 1974, 177).

“If [the giver] regularly renders needed services they cannot readily obtain elsewhere, others become dependent on and obligated to him for the services, and unless they can furnish other benefits to him that produce interdependence by making him equally de-pendent on them, their unilateral dependence obligates them to comply with his requests unless he ceases to continue to meet their needs” (Blau, 1964, 118).

Four conditions provide independence to individuals (Blau, 1964, 118f.): 1. They can sup-ply the giver with a service (reciprocal exchange), 2. They may obtain the needed service elsewhere, 3. They can coerce him to furnish the service, and 4. They may learn to resign themselves to do without this service. In addition to alternative exchange relations (second condition), it is also resources that provide independence (first condition).

In Blau’s perspective, exchange relations are power relations. Exchange produces trust and friendship at the same time as status differences and power imbalances. Differences in power exist if one individual is more dependent than the other. Blau reduces power relations to unilateral exchange relations, which are highly asymmetrical. Furthermore, he states that negative sanctions prevail as soon as an asymmetrical relation is established. This relation is only satisfying for the powerful person.

Researchers like Baldwin (1978), Chadwick-Jones (1976), and Heath (1976), however, ques-tion this narrow definiques-tion of power and broaden Blau’s concept. Their criticism of Blau’s power concept can be summarized in three main arguments. First, due to the rule of reci-procity, power relations are not always vertical, hierarchical, and unilateral (Baldwin, 1978, 1240f.). The giver is able to assume and maintain his or her powerful position only if the receiver acknowledges him or her as the power holder. The powerful person is thus equally

dependent on the others. Second, the zerosum game is not adequate to describe power rela-tions since exchange is not always exploitative (Heath, 1976, 25). Rewards also imply pos-itive sanctions within power relations for the dependent individual (Baldwin, 1978, 1240f.).

Since the giver becomes powerful by overinvesting in the relationship, an imbalance in power may lead to a positive exchange which is satisfactory to the person with less power as well (Chadwick-Jones, 1976, 283). Third, the winner also has to carry some of the exchange costs (Baldwin, 1978, 1240f.). Actually, overinvestment implies costs to a high degree. In order to gain a power advantage, the giver has to advance resources and make debts, and then simply hope that the receiver stays with him or her and does not change to a third person who makes a better offer.

We have to keep in mind that power relations are complex relationships, where power is re-lated not only to gains but also to costs, where dependent individuals may receive positive as well as negative sanctions, or where both parties may be equally satisfied with the relation-ship.

In addition to alternative relations and resources, Heath defines a person’s interest in the rela-tionship as another important condition for power. “That person is able to dictate the condi-tions of association whose interest in the continuation of the affair is least” (Heath, 1976, 25).

The so-called principle of least interest has also been formulated by Homans (1964), Ross (1921), Waller and Hill (1951) and Emerson (1962). This principle states that the person, who is less interested in the exchange, has more power in the relationship.

“Control over the relationship follows the principle of least interest, and the relationship, if it is continued, comes to give the dominant partner everything that he desires of such a relationship [...] while the other partner gains nothing but the continuance of the rela-tionship” (Waller and Hill, 1951, 191).

Blau’s analysis of power within social relations is based on Emerson’s power-dependence relation. In order to give a more detailed and also more formal perspective on the relation between power and dependence, Emerson’s model will be presented in brief.