Exchange Rules and Goal Structures

Abstract

This paper presents an experiment derived from social exchange theory, designed to explore the question of howpeople deal with multiple and possibly conflicting sources of information about rewards and costs. Twenty female and 20 male dyads participated in a binary choice two-person game that was cooperative in nature but required coordination. Independent variables were: goal structure (established by two different payoff matrices); exchange rules (established by six different "bonus rules "); order of presentation of exchange rules; sex; and subject position (subjects were randomly assigned to "table 1" or "table 2"). Dependent variables were the choices made by the subjects in the game and their responses on questionnaires that tested their attitudes and intentions. The general theoretical assumption was that the less certain (that is, more ambiguous, difficult to coordinate, or contradictory to social expectations) a source of information is, the less it will affect behavior. Several hypotheses drawn from this assumption were supported. However, the pattern of variables that affected behavior was found to be different from the pattern of variables that affected attitudes and intentions. Also, the variables had different effects on each of the two subject positions and the two sexes.