Social Exchange Theory – psychological

Focus: the social factors that influence how individuals interact within reciprocal
relationships

Premise: individuals are constrained by role expectations BUT they act within each
role to maximize benefits they will receive and to minimize costs to themselves (e.g.
explains choices of marriage partners)

Practical Example
Prince Charles and Diana – trade off in marriage
8276) Benefit Royal Family _ public favour _ Diana is youthful, fertile, and
beautiful = healthy attractive heir to throne, socialized for public life, royal
bloodline
8277) Benefit Diana _ luxurious lifestyle _ Charles wealthy and offers
opportunity for Diana to become Queen
8278) Trade off Charles _ Diana unable to withstand restrictions of Royal Family
8279) Trade off Diana _ Charles unwilling to end affair

COST IS GREATER THAN REWARDS

Weakness: some people offended by the cost/benefit analysis

Key Vocab/principles:

Reciprocal Relationships - given, felt, or done in return. an agreement or

arrangement) bearing on or binding two parties equally.

Role Expectations: follow the set of behaviours that an individual is expected to

follow within their status (a specific position within a group)
e.g. you are a student and are expected to go to class, complete assignments , ask
questions etc.

The Family Life Cycle:

Focus: the life span of families and patterns of growth and change throughout life
span

Premise: all families, like individuals, have life spans with predictable stages
marked by normative events (e.g. marriage, birth of child, child leaving home) _
each stage presents developmental tasks that are prerequisites for moving on to
next stage.

Weakness: not all stages fit all families (e.g. death of child,) non-normative events

Practical Example: A newly married couple faces task of negotiating how they will
make decisions and solve problems. Mastering this task prepares them for
challenges of next stage, if they have children.
Key Vocab:
Normative Events: common events in the life cycle of typical family (e.g. marriage,
birth)
Developmental Tasks: the necessary/specific “teachable” events at each stage in
the family life cycle that a family must overcome or master in order to develop as
a family unit

Political Conflict: sociological and political theory

Focus: how power, not functional interdependence, holds a society together

Premise: conflict exists b/w groups in society b/c of inequalities in power.

Groups compete with one another to meet their needs –
competition = exploitation

Practical Example:

Karl Marx: Class Divisions within Capitalist society

Wealthy Business Owners – a small group with big power over the livelihood of the
masses - they control means of production

Proletariat – the masses

The result in society is an Inequality of power

Therefore:

Explains relationship of men and women within a family as one of exploitation and
oppression and used for analysing power and authority within family

Historically in Industrial Society:

MEN maintain economic power within household b/c salary paid to them at this time
was enough to support family

WOMEN had little to no power b/c labour within home not paid = no economic
support except marriage

Weakness: stable society is people perceive dominant group as more entitled to

benefits of society than others – natural state of society

relationship of men and women within family as one of exploitation and oppression
– used to analyze power and authority within family
Key Vocabulary:

Exploitation: unfairly using or benefiting unjustly from the work of a less powerful
group of people with less economic strength. Within a family, it is the unfair
treatment (oppression) of an individual (wife) who is dependent on the authority
figure.

Structural Functionalism – sociological SEE OVERHEAD!!

Focus: how the structures function within society (e.g. law, political system, family=
institutions)

Premise: societies are stable when structures function in ways that benefit society
Change occurs if structures are able to ADJUST to maintain equilibrium in
society, but happens slowly

Weaknesses: functionalists tend to go beyond explaining how a society is

organized to PRESCRIBING how individuals within a society should behave

Systems – sociological

Focus: how groups of individuals interact as a system, a set of different parts that
work together and influence each other over time

Premise: family systems = complex organization

The family system informs its members how to interact to maintain stability of the
system
8280) “FEEDBACK” - members have reciprocal influence

Weakness: can be difficult to determine how others within family are influencing an
individual’s behaviour

Key Vocab:

System: a set of different parts that work together and influence one another over
time

Family Unit SubSystem: members sharing a household

Interpersonal Sub System: b/w individuals, e.g. husband-wife or mother-son

Personal Sub System: interaction b/w individual as self and as member of family

Meaningful Habits: patterns of interactions for achieving the goals and functions of
individuals and of the family and for interacting with external society

e.g. people who continually argue about chores share responsibility of this HABIT
Practical Example: Wife/mother returns to work after having child, new strategies
for doing homework will evolve as husband and child take on some of the chores

Symbolic Interactionism – psychological

Focus: how individuals choose how they will act based on their perceptions of
themselves and others

Premise: people experience their social world, and then define and interpret their
experiences to give them meaning.

Weakness: researcher perceives and interprets the actions of the individuals

during the observation, the observations could be influenced by the researcher’s
self image and beliefs – THEREFORE INACCURATE

Key Vocab:

Shared Symbols: the behaviours and/or language that individuals (men and women)
use to communicate their ideas to others.

Practical Examples:

Husband asks wife “What is wrong?” or “are you upset about something”. Wife
responds “nothing” or “no I’m not upset”, when in fact the husband’s behaviour
has upset the wife and she is too mad or assumes he should know what he did
wrong.

Men also do not communicate emotions well.

Feminist

Focus: roots in conflict theory. Explain social inequalities b/w men and women
from female perspective
Premise: change is required so that the needs of all people are met.

Weakness: solutions advocated are varied b/c feminist theories differ in how they
perceive the causes of inequality.

Key Vocab:

androcentricity: a bias that assumes male experience is human experience and

therefore applies to women

Double standards: biases that apply different standards for evaluating the behaviour
of men and women.

Practical Example: Socialist Feminism: status of women is a social inequality

based on sexual division of paid and unpaid labour.

Jobs paying more than $100 000 – equally Women make 87% of what men make at
same job - why? Performance jobs (over 100 g’s) are largely subjective –
discrimination?!