Social Net

There has been an increasing amount of interest in the social sciences on the embeddedness of economic behavior and on social capital, but little attention has been devoted in social psychology to the dynamics of such networks. Very successful theories have been developed to predict power and exchange patterns in networks in which actors negotiate among alternative partners (for example, Cook et al 1983; Markovsky et al 1993; Friedkin 1993; Bonacich 1998). Linda Molm (Molm et al 1999; Molm et al 2000; Molm et al 2001) has developed theories and experiments about power and exchange patterns in a very different kind of exchange network - one in which actors have an extended sequence of opportunities to reward one another and where reciprocity, rather thjn self-interest, is the guiding principle. Molm's experiments model social, or reciprocal, exchange - situations in which actors can give gifts to do favors for one another without a guarantee of return. Whether out of self-interest or because of a norm, individual behavior in reciprocal exchange networks is governed by the principle of reciprocity. Molm has concerned herself primarily with contrasts between the two types of exchange networks. She has not proposed a general model capable of predicting power and exchange patterns in any network, regardless of its size and complexity. Bonacich and Liggett (2002) purpose a general mathematical model for predicting power and exchange pattern in any reciprocal exchange network, no matter how large or complex. Actors are assumed to follow a principle of reciprocity in their relationships with others. The form of the network, the values of the relationships, and whether or not the relationships are symmetric are all parameters of the model. It is based primarily on the assumption that the actors reciprocate favors from others. The model, which is consistent with Molm's experimental work on two small networks, predicts interesting and unexpected patterns of exchange in larger and more complex networks.

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