Choice, Exchange Perspective in Family Research

교환 이론적 관점에서의 가족학 연구에 대한 고찰

Family researchers had devoted little attention to Choice, Exchange theory by the time 1960. Being anchored by Thibaut & kelley(1959), this theory becomes one of the most widely used theoretical frameworks for family research. Waller's(1938) famous rating-dating hypothesis was intrinsically an exchange formulation. Blood and Wolfe(1960) employed the concept of rewards in their theory of family power. Farber(1964) also used the reward concept in his theory of permanent availability. Heer's(1964) specific application of its concepts to spousal power was among its earliest uses in the family. The general principle or most general proposition of the theory is that humans avoid costly behavior and seek rewarding statuses, to the end maxmize profits. This review will attempt to show that Choice, Exchange theory is applicable to the several arenas of family interaction and that it can provide an explanation for family behavior. Subjects such as mate selection, marital unstability, family cohesion, spousal power, the problems of aged, family co-unseling, and so on are included. By discussing research findings from a perspective of rewrds and costs this review will show that the application of the theory is not limited to one or two substative specialities with in the family domain. After all Choice, Exchange theory is truly general and can be productively applied to any domain of human behavior.