ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book shows the pertinence of communitas and ritual as alternative pathways for personal experience and social well-being. In Simmel's view human interaction can be viewed as a series of exchanges, the results of which are a change in the personal condition of the individuals involved. Although people commonly think of exchanges in terms of a Western economic modelin which people try to acquire valued goods and services at the least cost exchanges are fundamentally shifts in social rather than economic condition, and they involve various kinds of trading at the same time. Positive emotions occur when one's standards for this balance of benefits and costs has been achieved. For the most part emotions are discussed in exchange theory as the feelings people have when negotiations either go their way or don't go their way.
