Reciprocal Social Exchange Research Articles

Refusal and Acceptance in Reciprocal Social Exchange

In this article, we apply a social exchange theoretical approach to the study of rejection. We investigate how the explicit refusal and acceptance of offered resources affect reciprocal exchanges. We distinguish contexts with explicit communication of refusal from contexts in which refusal is uncommunicated or concealed and investigate how context and the actual experience of refusal affect reciprocal social exchange behaviors and the emergence of social bonds. We also examine the effects of contexts and experiences of communicated acceptance. Results of a controlled laboratory experiment show that the contextual possibility of refusal increases giving but nevertheless weakens emerging social bonds. Experiencing refusal increases self-isolation but also, under certain conditions, greater investment in alternative relationships. The contextual possibility of acceptance, on the other hand, has little effect on giving behaviors or social bonds. The experience of acceptance, however, may reduce partner switching.

SUCCESSFULLY PREPARING DAUGHTERS AS SUCCESSORS IN FAMILY FIRMS

Drawing on insights from the family business succession and mentoring literature, we examined the preparation process for daughters as successors in family firms in the United States. In-depth interviews were conducted with eighteen daughters and their parent mentors (nine mothers and nine fathers) using a qualitative case study approach. We identified a reciprocal social exchange process between parent mentors who provided resources and daughters who acquired the knowledge to become successors in their family firms. Significant elements in the preparation process included: positive childhood experiences, choosing and earning a relevant college degree, the daughter’s autonomous decision to enter the family firm, guided on-the-job training, and counsel and advice to overcome the crucial issues of male gender bias and the burden of childcare responsibility. The significance is highlighted of differences that exist between mothers and fathers as mentors regarding understanding the daughters’ position in the firm and communication.

Adaptive prospective memory for faces of cheaters and cooperators.

A central tenet of the adaptive-memory framework is that memory has not merely evolved to help us relive the past but to prepare us for the future. In reciprocal social exchange, for instance, people must learn from previous experiences to approach cooperators and to avoid cheaters. In this sense, adaptive memory is inherently prospective. The present research is the first to test this central assumption of the adaptive-memory framework. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants played a Prisoner's Dilemma game and encountered cheating, cooperating, and neutral partners. The faces of these partners later reappeared during an event-based prospective-memory task. Participants showed better prospective-memory performance for cooperator and cheater faces than for neutral control faces. Multinomial processing-tree modeling served to separate the prospective component (remembering that an action needs to be performed) from the retrospective component (recognizing the target faces) of prospective memory. Superior prospective-memory performance for cooperator and cheater faces was attributable to a stronger prospective component, whereas the retrospective component remained unaffected. Experiment 3 showed that emotional descriptions of targets were ineffective in increasing prospective memory, suggesting that emotional valence alone cannot account for the prospective-memory advantage found in Experiments 1 and 2. The results suggest that cooperating with someone or being cheated by someone has a strong impact on future-oriented cognition. Enhanced prospective memory for cooperator and cheater faces may have an important function for maintaining reciprocal relationships and for avoiding cheaters. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Good soldiers in implementation: validation of the Implementation Citizenship Behavior Scale and its relation to implementation leadership and intentions to use evidence-based practices

BackgroundImplementation citizenship behavior (ICB) describes extra-role behaviors performed by employees to support evidence-based practice (EBP) implementation. Such behaviors can be measured using the Implementation Citizenship Behavior Scale (ICBS), which divides ICB into two dimensions, namely helping others and keeping informed. The current study extends the use of the ICBS to a context outside the USA and adds to the literature by investigating how leader-perceived ICB relates to practitioner-perceived implementation leadership and practitioners’ intentions to use EBPs.MethodsParticipants were 42 leaders and 152 practitioners in Norwegian mental health services implementing EBPs for post-traumatic stress disorder. Leaders rated each practitioner on ICB, and each practitioner rated their leader on implementation leadership and reported on their own intentions to use EBPs. The psychometric properties of the ICBS were assessed using confirmatory factor analysis and internal consistency reliabilities. The relationships between ICB, implementation leadership and intentions to use EBPs, were investigated through a series of bivariate correlation analyses and a path analysis of the total scales.ResultsThe ICBS showed excellent psychometric properties. The hypothesized two-factor model provided an excellent fit to the data, and both subscales and the total scale were internally reliable. Leader-perceived ICB was positively and significantly correlated with both practitioner-perceived implementation leadership and practitioners’ intentions to use EBPs. Correlations with intentions to use EBPs were stronger for the subscale of keeping informed than for the subscale of helping others.ConclusionsResults indicated that practitioners who rated their leader higher on implementation leadership received higher ICB ratings from their leader and reported higher intentions to use EBPs. The results provide evidence of a reciprocal social exchange relationship between leaders and practitioners during EBP implementation and a link to an important proximal implementation outcome (i.e., intentions to use EBPs). Results also suggest cultural differences in how ICB is perceived and relates to other phenomena. Scientific and practical implications are discussed.Trial registrationRetrospectively registered in ClinicalTrials with ID NCT03719651.

The role and performance of supporter directors: A social exchange theory perspective

ABSTRACT Supporter directors are individuals elected to a sports organization’s board to represent the interests of its supporters. Although their inclusion on boards is widely considered to be good ethical practice, recent research shows that supporter directors face distinct challenges that often inhibit them from performing effectively. The purpose of this study was to illuminate how supporter directors can overcome these challenges by, firstly, generating a deeper understanding of the roles of supporter directors in Scottish football clubs and, secondly, analysing how board-level social interaction influences supporter directors role performance. The research method consisted of 17 interviews with individuals who are currently serving, or have previously served, as supporter directors on Scottish football club boards. The findings show that supporter directors perceive their role to encompass three elements: (1) promoting supporters’ interests in board meetings, (2) acting as a conduit of information, and (3) complying with their fiduciary duties. Drawing on the social exchange theory, the findings then revealed a perception among supporter directors that successful performance of those roles is dependent on their ability to initiate and sustain patterns of reciprocal social exchange with their board colleagues. The research provides practical recommendations for supporter directors and other types of stakeholder representatives on how to improve their performance.

The role of “food” in network formation and the social integration of undocumented Zimbabwean migrant farmworkers in the Blouberg-Molemole area of Limpopo, South Africa

This article examines the role of food in mediating social relations between undocumented Zimbabwean migrant farmworkers and other Zimbabweans living and working in the Blouberg and Molemole local municipalities in Limpopo province, South Africa. Based on ethnographic research, the article reveals that food, besides the utility of its physical matter as a necessity to satiate hunger, has a deeply embedded social meaning through which relations and modes of belonging can be expressed. This social meaning is best understood by invoking the concept ukama igasva hunozadziswa nekudya [a relationship is not complete until there is food]. Food mediates reciprocal social exchanges that lighten the burden of precarious working conditions associated with agricultural labour and reinforce a sense of belonging and oneness. Food also lubricates mutually supportive networks between undocumented farmworkers and Zimbabwean citizens working in other sectors. The article concludes that using ukama igasva hunozadziswa nekudya as an analytical concept provides rich explanations of the role of food in unifying the Zimbabwean migrant community in Limpopo. Food facilitates the production of macro-level connections in which individual Zimbabwean migrants, irrespective of their professional pursuits, identify with the larger network cluster based on citizenship.

Toward a new framing of corruption in health systems in LMICs: what questions should we be asking?

Abstract Understanding and addressing corruption is critical for equitable and socially just development, and is therefore central to the realisation of the SDGs including the creation of responsive and trusted heath systems. Some conventional definitions of corruption do not reflect the complex reality in LMICs. Corruption is often conflated with poor governance, weak accountability or inefficiency but each manifestation has different structural and institutional causes, triggers and so requires different strategies to address it. 'Survival corruption' can be an informal coping strategy, other forms are manifest as reciprocal social exchanges within networks which may benefit wider groups of people and mask or contain health system dysfunctions. A proposition is made that we ask new questions that move away from a focus on the individual transaction towards locating it within health system and societal contexts that ultimately consider power and individual actor motivation.

Comparing the role of personal and organisational support on the innovative behaviour of frontline healthcare workers in Australia and the United States

AbstractThis paper empirically uses a street‐level bureaucrat (SLB) lens to compare the impact of personal and organisational support on the innovative behaviour of frontline healthcare workers in Australia and the United States. Survey data came from the 260 U.S. and 220 Australian respondents. The structural equation model shows that organisational (i.e. manager–subordinate relationships) and personal supports (i.e. psychological capital [PsyCap]) significantly influence the innovative behaviour of frontline SLBs in health care. Further, the mediation results show that reciprocal social exchanges provide the foundations for facilitating the growth of healthcare workers’ PsyCap, which then gives them the resilience to be innovative in the workplace. The U.S. respondents perceived stronger organisational support and consequently had a better platform for building PsyCap – providing better work conditions for facilitating innovative behaviour to bourgeon. The paper adds to SLB theory concerning the influence of two variables on SLBs' innovative behaviour, in addition to a meaningful comparison of the U.S. and Australian healthcare workers. If governments and organisations want innovative workers, then the policies must be based on empirical evidence that shows the impact on all stakeholders, including SLBs, because otherwise, irrespective of policy directives, the outcome is low levels of employee wellbeing (which likely results in limited innovative activity).

More than Subversion: Four Strategies for the Dominated

This article asks what strategies are available to dominated actors in fields of cultural production. Using archival and biographical materials on Ottoman/Turkish women intellectuals, we show that they effectively used, depending on their social and cultural capital and their past practices, at least four strategies. Apart from the well-theorized strategy of subversion, they could also deploy acquiescence, collaboration, and defiance. These four strategies, we argue, constitute a two-dimensional space defined by loyalty vs. resistance on one hand and the overtness vs. covertness of loyalty or resistance on the other. While much of this space is best understood in terms of reciprocal social exchange, the assumptions of exchange break down in the case of overt resistance, showing that strategy goes beyond negotiation and that the understanding of power as always-already implicated with resistance has limits.

Work design and frontline employee engagement

PurposeIn response to calls for the identification of approaches that promote frontline employee (FLE) engagement, the purpose of this paper is to extend the current understanding of the influence of work design by testing competing mediating models that assess job resource and social exchange aspects of work design as either intermediate or antecedent mechanisms in reciprocal social exchanges between service provider firms and FLEs. Moderating effects of interactions between job resources and organizational support and customer focus on engagement are also assessed.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire is administered to 525 FLEs from multiple service industries. Structural equation modeling is used to test hypotheses and examine their robustness relative to competing models. Common method bias is assessed using a confirmatory factor analysis marker variable technique.FindingsOrganizational support and customer focus are identified as proximal mediating social exchange aspects of work design that, consistent with role-specific conceptualizations of engagement, differentially influence FLE job and organization engagement.Practical implicationsThe study findings offer insight about how firms can implement job resource and social exchange aspects of work design to favorably influence FLE engagement.Originality/valueServices marketing research continues to focus more on service recipients than on FLE service providers. The examination of reciprocal social exchanges between service provider firms and FLEs sheds light on the complexities associated with exploiting aspects of work design to more effectively engage FLEs.

Appearance-based first impressions and person memory.

Previous research has demonstrated that people preferentially remember reputational information that is emotionally incongruent to their expectations, but it has left open the question of the generality of this effect. Three conflicting hypotheses were proposed: (a) The effect is restricted to information relevant to reciprocal social exchange. (b) The effect is most pronounced for emotional (approach-and-avoidance-relevant) information. (c) The effect is due to a general tendency of the cognitive system to attend to unexpected and novel information regardless of its (emotional) content. Here, we varied the type of to-be-remembered person information across experiments. To stimulate expectations, we selected faces whose facial appearance was rated as pleasant or disgusting (Experiments 1 and 2), as intelligent or unintelligent (Experiment 3), or as being that of a lawyer or a farmer (Experiment 4). These faces were paired with behavior descriptions that violated or confirmed these appearance-based 1st impressions. Source memory for the association between the faces and the descriptions was assessed with surprise memory tests. The results show that people are willing to form various social expectations based on facial appearance alone, and they support the hypothesis that the classification of the faces in the memory test is biased by schema-congruent guessing. Source memory was generally enhanced for information violating appearance-based social expectations. In sum, the results show that person memory is consistently affected by different kinds of social expectations, supporting the idea that the mechanisms determining memory performance generalize beyond exchange-relevant reputational and emotional information.

An exploration of the value and mechanisms of befriending for older adults in England

ABSTRACTSocial isolation and loneliness in older adults are growing problems. Empirical research suggests that loneliness can lead to poorer health outcomes including higher mortality rates. Befriending has been shown to decrease loneliness and depression although the exact mechanisms of action are unclear. In this study we aimed to explore experiences and identify key ‘ingredients’ of befriending through interviews conducted with 25 older adults who had used five different befriending services across England. We used Berkman's theoretical model of how individual social networks impact on health to help interpret our data and explore the mechanisms of befriending for older adults. Findings suggest that befriending offers some compensation for loss of elective relationships from older adults’ social networks, providing opportunities for emotional support and reciprocal social exchange through development of safe, confiding relationships. Good conversational skills and empathy were the foundation of successful relationships within which commonalities were then sought. Befrienders broadened befriendees’ perspectives on life (particularly among older adults in residential care). Social engagement was a powerful mechanism of action, particularly in terms of connecting people back into the community, reinforcing meaningful social roles and connecting to a past life that had often been significantly disrupted by loss. Understanding key components and mechanisms of befriending for older adults may facilitate development of more effective and theoretically sound befriending services.

Emotion in a call centre SME: A case study of positive emotion management

Summary Much has been written about the negative emotional experiences of customer service representatives (CSRs) within large Anglo-Saxon call centres and very little is known about the potential positive emotions involved in this form of employment. Our research, which is based on a case study of call centre CSRs within one small-to-medium sized enterprise (SME) in the Greek telecommunications sector, challenges the ‘vocal sweatshop’ image and constructs a different type of story about call centres. We explore the nature of emotion management in this workplace by looking at the context and control of emotional performances and the conditions that would guide positive work feelings. The findings illustrate the ways in which supportiveness, caring and nurturance intertwine to form a ‘humane’ and ‘understanding’ workplace. They indicate a call centre environment where work feelings are expressed as philanthropic emotions and emerge from the reciprocal social exchange in the workplace. This paper emphasises the positive side of emotion management and suggests that emotions in this study identify with work feelings rather than emotional labour.

The Gift of Health

Drawing on ethnographic data collected over 13 months of fieldwork in family doctor clinics in Havana from 2004 to 2005, I examine the shifting moral and material economies of Cuban socialist medical practice. In both official ideology and in daily practice, the moral economy of ideal socialist medicine is based on an ethos of reciprocal social exchange-that is, the gift-that informs not only doctors' relationships with the Cuban state and with individual patients but also the state's policies of international medical service to developing nations. The social and economic upheavals after the fall of t Soviet Union, however, have compelled both the state and individual doctors to operate in a new local and global economy. The gift remains the central metaphor of Cuban medical practice. Nonetheless, as ideologies and practices of gifting and reciprocity encounter an emerging market economy, gifts--whether on the level of the state policies of international humanism or in patient-doctor relations--are open to new significations that highlight the shifting material and moral economies of post-Soviet Cuba.

高齢者の心理的適応を支えるソーシャル・サポートの質：サポーターの種類とサポート交換の主観的互恵性

In Western countries, it has been well documented that reciprocal social exchanges with family members enhance psychological adjustment among the elderly. This study examined (1) the association between reciprocal social exchange and psychological adjustment, (2) differences between family-dominant and non-family-dominant support networks and (3) whether reciprocal exchange was more critical in instrumental than in emotional support in Japanese subjects.A total of 69 subjects, aged 65 or older, were individually interviewed regarding their social relationships using a self-report type method. Their psychological adjustment was assessed by self-esteem, self-efficacy, life-satisfaction, loneliness and depression scales. The results showed, as expected, that reciprocity of social exchange affected psychological adjustment. Moreover, reciprocal exchange was more important in instrumental than in emotional support. However, against our expectation, family-dominant networks were more efficient in enhancing psychological adjustment than non-family-dominant networks. Cultural and practical implications of this research are discussed.

The sociobiology of everyday life : A new look at a very old novel.

The 1000-year-old novel The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu around 1002 CE, shows the operation of general principles of sociobiology. Isolated from western influences and cloaked in Japanese traditions, the common traits associated with reproductive processes are clearly evident. The novel depicts the differential investment of males and females in offspring, male competitive behaviors, and concerns for paternity, kin selection, reciprocal social exchange, species-typical emotional expression, female mate choice, positive assortative mating, and acknowledgment of hereditary transmission of physical and psychological traits. The nature of human behavior in Genji's time seems little different than now and has all the attributes of species-specific and universal traits. Indeed, it can be argued that the fundamental characteristics of Homo sapiens have never changed, being influenced only in form by culture. The qualitative and quantitative evaluation of ancient texts is a strong methodology for understanding the invariant nature of human behavior.

Group properties and outcomes: a study of group norms in self-help groups for widows and widowers.

Despite the nearly universally shared agreement among group therapists about the importance of group norms, empirical studies have rarely demonstrated a positive relationship between specific norms in psychotherapy groups and patient benefit. The study explored this relationship by examining the linkages between norms, a specific therapeutic process, and patient outcome. Examined were seventy-two spousal bereavement groups. Subjects' responses to a thirty-one item behavioral inventory were used to define norms; outcomes were based upon Time 1/Time 2 differences on a series of eleven measures indexing depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms, abuse of psychotropic medication, coping mastery, well-being, self-esteem, target problem rating, several measures of role stress and strain, and stigma. The findings suggest that normative characteristics were linked to a process, reciprocal social exchange, that influences positive outcomes. The results are preliminary, since they only serve to demonstrate such a relationship can exist.

A family systems approach to child abuse: Etiology and intervention

Abstract This paper will briefly review the traditional theories of both the etiology of, and intervention with, child abuse situations. Then a different orientation and perspective of child abuse will be elaborated, both theoretically and as practiced at a therapeutic preschool, infant, and family center in the southwest.∗ This perspective is a family systems one where relationships, transactions, and reciprocal social exchanges have an effect on how child abuse may start, continue, and be stopped.