Is Homans tautological?

Abstract

Abstract Execution of an axiomatization of Homans' exchange theory of interpersonal behavior by the present investigator has prompted reexamination and clarification of many chronic issues central both to Homans' analyses and to sociological theory and research at large. Often debated in the critical literature on Homans' work, these perennially lively issues represent complicated tangles of controversies bearing on such problems as reductionism, formalization, codification of divergent perspectives, the theory-data chasm, and causality. This paper reappraises one such issue, tautology. After an outline of the axiomatization, the tautology criticisms of Homans' theory are considered, in the context of the general sociological problem of tautology. A sociologically novel axiomatic tool for identifying tautologies is then employed; the criticisms are resolved; and implications of the approach for sociological inquiry are suggested.