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Sociological Perspectives

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Social exchange theory
The social exchange theory was introduced in 1958 by the sociologist George Homans. Other theorists continued to write about this theory – Peter M Blau and Richard M Emerson.
The social exchange theory proposes that social behaviour is the result of an exchange process. The purpose of this exchange is to maximise benefits and minimise costs. According to this theory, people weigh the potential benefits and risks of social relationships. When the risks outweigh the rewards, people will terminate or abandon that relationship.
The social exchange theory suggests that we essentially take the benefits and minus the costs in order to determine how much a relationship is worth positive relationships are those in which the benefits outweigh the costs, while negative relationships occur when the costs are greater than the benefits.
Costs involve things that are seen as negatives to the individual such as having to put money, time and effort into a relationship. The benefits are things that the individual gets out of the relationship such as fun, friendship, companionship and social support.
When you are at a young age, you don’t really care about relationships and friendships. You can have loads of friends and not really care about keeping them because you can find some more very quickly.
However, as you get older you tend to have fewer friends and only have a few friends that you actually class as your friends. This shows that as you get older you value your friendships/ relationships more than when you were

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