Explain Homans’s assumptions regarding elementary social behavior.
What will be an ideal response?
What will be an ideal response?Homans had to acknowledge some basic assumptions when transposing Skinner’s work into his own theory, namely, that propositions regarding individual behavior could be adapted to social situations and, perhaps more controversial, that propositions on the behavior of pigeons could be generalized to the behavior of humans (Homans 1961:31). Taking these two assumptions into account, Homans sought to explain elementary social behavior, which he defined as “face-to-face contact between individuals, in which the reward [or punishment] each gets from the behavior of the others is relatively direct and immediate” (ibid.:7). social behavior is based on the type of exchange “where the activity of each of at least two animals reinforces (or punishes) the activity of the other, and where accordingly each influences the other” (ibid.:30).
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