Exchange, Affect, and Group Relations

This chapter explicates the connections between a recent affect theory of social exchange (Lawler 2001, 2002) and the seminal work of George C. Homans (1950, 1961, 1974). Heretofore, these connections to Homans’s theoretical analyses have remained implicit (e.g., see Lawler 2001, 2002, 2003). Nevertheless, Homans’s (1950) early work on the human group, as well as his later work on behavioral principles (Homans 1974), have exerted a subtle influence on the affect theory of social exchange and the program of work leading up to it (see Lawler and Yoon 1996; Lawler, Thye, and Yoon 2000). This influence is manifest in the parallel roles that Homans ascribed to interaction frequency and sentiment (Homans 1950) and that I ascribe to the emotional effects of exchange frequency (Lawler and Yoon 1996). The purpose of this chapter is to identify how key principles of the affect theory of social exchange build on or depart from Homans’s theoretical approach. As will become clear, the ties to the early Homans (1950) are stronger than to the later Homans (1961, 1974). ¹