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Volume 73 • Number 2 • June 2010
“Bill Wallace, Woodworker” Photograph by Michael Schwalbe
Two on Talk Cooley-Mead Address
The Journal of MicrosociologiesA Journal of the American Sociological Association
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Social Psychology Quarterly(Formerly SOCIOMETRY)
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SPQ_v73n2_cover1.indd 2 30/04/2010 12:15:51 PM
Social Psychology QuarterlyVolume 73, Number 2 June 2010
coNteNtS
oPeNINGS
MIchael Schwalbe 107In Search of craft
Peter bearMaN 112Just-so Stories: Vaccines, autism, and the Single-bullet Disorder
cooleY-MeaD awarD 2009
cecIlIa l. rIDGewaY 116Introduction of linda D. Molm: 2009 recipient of the cooley-Mead award
lINDa D. MolM 119the Structure of reciprocity
two oN talK
DaVID r. GIbSoN 132Marking the turn: obligation, engagement, and alienation in Group Discussions
DaNIelle PIllet-Shore 152Making way and Making Sense: Including Newcomers in Interaction
artIcleS
coYe cheShIre, alexaNDra GerbaSI, aND KareN S. cooK 176trust and transitions in Modes of exchange
Noah e. FrIeDKIN 196the attitude-behavior linkage in behavioral cascades
the Journal of Microsociologiesa JourNal oF the aMerIcaN SocIoloGIcal aSSocIatIoN
Social Psychology QuarterlyBILL OF RIGHTS FOR AUTHORS
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Introduction of Linda D. Molm: 2009 Recipientof the Cooley-Mead Award
CECILIA L. RIDGEWAYStanford University
It is not only an honor but a genuine plea-
sure to introduce Linda Molm, Professor
of Sociology at the University of Arizona,
as the winner of the 2009 Cooley-Mead
Award for distinguished career contributions
to social psychology. My goal in this intro-
duction is to give you a sense of how Linda’s
research career has developed and to sketch
for you her remarkable contributions to social
psychological knowledge. As you will see,
this award is richly deserved.
Linda began her intellectual career at North
Dakota State University where she received
her BA in 1970. Perhaps her rural background
contributed to that sturdy independence of
mind that has characterized her throughout
her career. But she quickly put North Dakota
in her rear view mirror. She moved on to the
vibrant atmosphere of the sociology depart-
ment at the University of North Carolina-
Chapel Hill (UNC) and earned an MA there
in 1971 and her PhD in 1976.
At UNC Linda began to develop some of
the touchstones of what we now know as her
distinctive intellectual approach. One of these
was a deep interest in everyday interaction
and the way that relationships develop and
change through the interaction process.
Another was a thorough-going commitment
to a scientific approach that emphasizes sys-
tematic theory tested by logically tight experi-
ments. In graduate school, Linda worked with
James Wiggins and the ‘‘behavioral sociol-
ogy’’ approach. This was not the most popular
approach in sociology at the time and she knew
it. But she was drawn to the promise it seemed
to hold then for the development of a scientific
account of social exchange. Here we see that
independence of mind I mentioned. These
early commitments during graduate school
led her to a lifelong focus on the contingent,
back and forth, give and take nature of social
relationships. They also led her to the broad
field of social exchange theory as the way to
conceptualize that give and take.
Linda’s first academic appointment was as
an assistant professor at Emory University in
1976. There she rose through the ranks,
becoming an associate professor in 1982
and chair of the department in 1985. She
had convinced the department to build her
a laboratory and she soon turned it into
a well-spring of new, powerful research. In
her first few years at Emory she continued
her behavioral analysis approach to social
exchange, focusing on the effects of rein-
forcement contingencies on the development
of exchange and cooperation.
This is the period when I personally became
aware of Linda’s work. I heard her present
a paper at the American Sociological Associa-
tion meeting and I thought, this is really good!
A combination of factors impressed me. Her
analysis showed intuitive insight and an almost
practical realism about the ongoing flow of
mutual influence in social relationships. And
yet she linked this feeling for relationships
with rigorous, abstract, and systematic theoret-
ical analysis and an experimental test. I must
say, I continue to be impressed by this combi-
nation of strengths. They characterize almost
all of Linda’s research.
I was not then nor have I been since the
only one who was impressed by the sharp,
A version of this talk was presented at the annual
meeting of the American Sociological Association, San
Francisco, CA, August 9, 2009. Direct correspondence
to Department of Sociology, Stanford University, 450
Serra Blvd., Building 120, Stanford, CA 94305;
Social Psychology Quarterly
Vol. 73, No. 2, 116–118
� American Sociological Association 2010
DOI: 10.1177/0190272510369076
http://spq.sagepub.comCooley-Mead Award 2009
crystalline quality of Linda’s papers. Despite
their unpopular behaviorist approach, Linda
placed these very early papers of hers in
excellent journals: Social Forces and Social
Psychology Quarterly. That began what has
been one of the most stellar records of publi-
cations in top journals in the entire discipline.
Just in case you want to feel intimated, let me
remind you that at this point Linda has 17
papers published in the top three journals of
sociology (ASR, AJS, and Social Forces) and
has another 10 papers in Social Psychology
Quarterly in addition to her many other
publications.
Since her graduate student days, Linda had
been influenced by Richard Emerson’s behav-
ioral approach to social exchange. But at the
end of the 1970s, Linda took a more specific
interest in Emerson’s power-dependence the-
ory, which was developing as a major sociolog-
ical theory of power in social relations. The
connection was transformative. It led Linda
to the first of her programs of research that
have made perspective-changing contributions
to the modern body of knowledge on social
exchange. Emerson’s theory posits that people
with greater access to alternative exchange
partners will have a structural power advantage
over others with fewer alternative partners.
This theory had been investigated primarily
through studies in which people negotiated
with exchange partners to reach an explicit
‘‘deal.’’ Linda pointed out, however, that in
most everyday exchanges, which are tacit,
reciprocal exchanges, not formal negotiations,
people would have to actively use their power
advantage in a contingent way to benefit from
it. To what extent do they do that? Through
a series of major papers, Linda demonstrated
that while structural advantage is indeed
related to power use, the relationship is only
a moderate one. As a result, people in contin-
gent interactions only rarely fully convert
their structural potential for power over others
to actual power over them.
Because of her focus on the give and take
of behavior in relationships, Linda was
uniquely positioned among contemporary
exchange theorists to study power use, that
is, the contingent use of rewards and
punishments to get the other to give you
what you want. And this is what she did. Still
at Emory, she began a new, major research
program by observing that in everyday rela-
tionships, people don’t just use power by giv-
ing or withholding rewards, they also use
power coercively, by doing something aver-
sive to the other (e.g., criticizing) in order
to get the other to give them more. Could
power-dependence theory be applied to the
use of coercive, punishment power too?
More generally, how does structural power
imbalance affect power use in realistic situa-
tions in which people are able to use both
reward and punishment power with each
other? In the late 1980s, Linda moved to the
University of Arizona and brought this new
research program to fruition.
In several major papers and in a 1997 book
that reads like a tale of scientific detection,
Linda gave us some genuinely surprising and
intriguing answers to these questions. My
undergraduates love this material when I teach
it. Linda showed that when the only power
people have available to them is punishment
power, they use it and it can be quite effective.
But when people have reward power as well as
punishment power available, they rarely use
the punishment power. Why? Because people
view punishment power as risky and it is also
perceived as more unjust and, so, invites
retaliation.
Linda also showed something interesting
that is relevant to power-dependence theory.
Unlike reward power, structural advantage
does not drive the use of punishment power
so there is a fundamental difference between
the two. In fact it is low power actors who
are actually more likely to use punishment
power because they have limited options
and less to lose. But their efforts tend to be
ineffective in getting them what they want
because their power position in the relation-
ship is weak. Once again, we have a rigor-
ously logical program of scientific research
that yields truly insightful knowledge of
how power use actually works in social rela-
tionships. Not surprisingly, the book that re-
ports this research, Coercive Power in
Social Exchange, won a ‘‘best book’’ prize
COOLEY-MEAD AWARD 2009 117
from the Theory Section of the American
Sociological Association.
Although Linda transformed the way power
use is understood in social exchange, power
itself was never her central concern, relation-
ships were. In the late 1990s, Linda returned
to a theme that has always been present in her
work, the development of commitment and
solidarity in relationships and the connections
of these to perceptions of fairness and trust. I
mentioned that many exchange researchers
study negotiated exchange while Linda has
focused on reciprocal exchange. Sometimes
these two forms of exchange produce different
results. Linda set out to figure out exactly why.
In a deep and brilliant theoretical analysis, she
located the difference between the two forms
and also a third form, generalized exchange,
in the nature and degree of risk they pose for
actors about whether their exchange efforts
will bring any positive outcomes. The experi-
ments she has conducted to test this theoretical
analysis have greatly clarified our under-
standing of the foundations of social exchange.
But Linda used this analysis to another
equally important effect. Her analysis of
risk in exchange, and especially in reciprocal
exchange, clarified for us the role of risk in
the development of trust and affective bonds
between people. Social scientists have known
for some time that reciprocity builds bonds,
but why? Linda shows that the answer is para-
doxical. In reciprocal exchange, nothing guar-
antees that the other will give back when you
give. But when, in the face of this risk, the other
does give back, it generates feelings of warmth
and trust—the beginnings of commitment and
solidarity. This, she argues, is the ‘‘value of
reciprocity.’’
Well, I think you can see that it is no longer
possible to discuss either exchange theory or
the actual process of social exchange without
constant reference to the work of Linda
Molm. This is a scholar who has transformed
one of the core theoretical perspectives of
sociological social psychology. I have empha-
sized how Linda has accomplished this through
substantive contributions to knowledge. How-
ever, I would like to close by acknowledging
the contributions Linda has made in another
way as well.
Throughout her distinguished career,
Linda has offered a model of logically rigor-
ous but always open minded and generous
behavior as a scholar. This was very much
on display in her highly successful term as
coeditor of Social Psychology Quarterly with
Lynn Smith-Lovin. It is not an accident that
Linda was a partner on the team that innovated
coeditorships for ASA journals despite previ-
ous thinking that this was not viable since
‘‘someone must always have the final say.’’
As her fellow exchange theorists and many
of the rest of us will tell you, Linda never
transforms an intellectual debate into a per-
sonal contest. Instead, she reads and responds
with interest and fair-mindedness to the ideas
of others, even those that challenge her own.
Linda Molm is the sort of scholar who always
keeps her eyes on the prize of real knowledge.
118 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
The Structure of Reciprocity
LINDA D. MOL MUniversity of Arizona
Reciprocity is one of the defining features of social exchange and social life, yet exchange
theorists have tended to take it for granted. Drawing on work from a decade-long theoretical
research program, I argue that reciprocity is structured and variable across different forms
of exchange, that these variations in the structure of reciprocity have profound effects on the
emergence of integrative bonds of trust and solidarity, and that these effects are explained
and mediated by a set of risk- and conflict-based processes. I discuss the consequences of
this work for organizational theories of embeddedness and the production of social capital
through network ties. Finally, I ask how the structure of networks and the structure of
reciprocity are related to one another, and explore possible implications of the structure
of reciprocity for exchange theorists’ assumptions about actor motivations.
Keywords: social exchange, reciprocity, solidarity, networks
Reciprocity, the giving of benefits to
another in return for benefits received,
is one of the defining features of social
exchange and, more broadly, of social life.
Many sociologists have recognized its impor-
tance over the years. In the early 1900s,
Hobhouse (1906:12) called reciprocity ‘‘the
vital principle of society’’ and Simmel
(1950:387) noted that social equilibrium and
cohesion could not exist without ‘‘the reci-
procity of service and return service.’’ In the
mid-1900s, both Becker and Gouldner called
attention to the seemingly universal character
of reciprocity. Becker (1956:1) referred to our
species as ‘‘homo reciprocus,’’ while Gould-
ner (1960) suggested that a ‘‘norm of reci-
procity’’ helps assure that people help others
who have helped them in the past. More
recently, evolutionary biologists and experi-
mental economists have proposed that we
are hard-wired for reciprocity, and have
described reciprocity as the evolutionary
basis for cooperation in society (Nowak and
Sigmund 2000).
Exchange theorists, on the other hand, have
tended to take reciprocity for granted, partly
because it is part of the definition of exchange.
Emerson (1972b), for example, noted that since
reciprocity is not a variable attribute of
exchange relations, it is of little theoretical
interest. Reciprocity has also been overlooked
because sociological exchange theorists have
for decades concentrated on forms of exchange
that involve only a single type of reciprocity:
two-party direct exchanges in which bilateral
agreements are jointly negotiated.
Throughout my career, I have studied a dif-
ferent form of exchange—what I and others
have called reciprocal exchange (Molm
1994). In reciprocal exchange, actors perform
This Cooley-Mead address was presented to the Social
Psychology Section of the American Sociological
Association on August 9, 2009, at the Association’s annual
meetings in San Francisco. Address correspondence to
Linda D. Molm, Department of Sociology, University of
Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721; [email protected]. The
program of research discussed here was supported by three
grants from the National Science Foundation over the past
15 years (#SBR-9514911; #SES-0217287; #SES-0814317);
more generally, I would like to acknowledge the
Foundation’s generous support of my research throughout
my career. I am deeply grateful to the contributions of my
collaborators and coauthors on this project: Gretchen
Peterson, Nobuyuki Takahashi, Jessica Collett, David
Schaefer, and my current graduate student collaborators,
David Melamed and Monica Whitham. Many other
graduate and undergraduate research assistants, too
numerous to name, also contributed to this work in valued
ways.
Social Psychology Quarterly
Vol. 73, No. 2, 119–131
� American Sociological Association 2010
DOI: 10.1177/0190272510369079
http://spq.sagepub.com
individual acts that benefit another, like giv-
ing help or advice, without negotiation and
without knowing whether or when the other
will reciprocate. My focus on reciprocal
exchange came out of my early training in
behavioral sociology (Burgess and Bushell
1969); many of the early behavioral experi-
ments were conducted under minimal infor-
mation conditions in which the reciprocal
exchange of benefits was all that subjects
experienced, so reciprocity was very salient.
I was influenced, too, by the classical theories
of our tradition; reciprocal exchange is what
Homans (1961), Blau (1964), and Thibaut
and Kelley (1959) all had in mind when
they developed the social exchange approach
in the 1950s and 1960s. I would argue that it
is also what Emerson (1972a, b) had in mind
when he developed his theory of power-
dependence relations.
About 15 years ago, I became interested in
how these different forms of exchange that my
colleagues and I were studying—negotiated
exchange versus reciprocal exchange—might
be affecting our theories and our experimental
findings. I wrote an initial paper on this
topic back in the early 1990s (Molm 1994),
and in the late 1990s I began a new program
of research comparing different forms of
exchange. One product of that work is an exten-
sive set of findings about the effects of different
forms of exchange on both behavior and affec-
tive bonds. A second product is a theory of rec-
iprocity that explains why different forms of
exchange have such different effects on the
development of trust and affective bonds. A
third product—an ongoing one—is an effort to
link this theoretical and experimental work to
organizational and network theories of embedd-
edness and social capital. And a fourth product
is some very preliminary thoughts on the imp-
lications of reciprocity for the motivational
assumptions that underlie our theories of
exchange. This latter product also owes a debt
to my earlier work on coercive power and risk
aversion (Molm 1997).
In this address I draw on this work, now in
its final phases, to make three central points
about reciprocity and its effects, and to dis-
cuss the implications of this work for theories
of social capital, organizations, networks, and
social exchange.
I begin by developing these three points:
1. Reciprocity is structured. It is not
just a norm, not just a process, and
it is variable across different forms
of exchange.
2. The structure of reciprocity has
profound consequences for social
relationships, not only for exchange
and power but for the emergence of
trust and solidarity.
3. Dimensions of reciprocity produce
these effects through mechanisms
of risk, uncertainty, and conflict.
I then turn to the implications of this work
for both social life and social theory, by ad-
dressing these questions: First, what are the
consequences of reciprocity in interpersonal
relationships for organizational theories of
embeddedness and for the production of
social capital through network ties? Second,
what is the relation between the structure of
reciprocity and the structure of exchange net-
works? Third, what does a theory of reciproc-
ity suggest about the actor motivations that
underlie the development of exchange rela-
tions, and what are the implications for our
theories of social exchange?
RECIPROCITY IN SOCIAL EXCHANGE: A
RESEARCH PROGRAM
The Structure of Reciprocity
One of the hallmarks of contemporary
exchange theory is its emphasis on structure.
This emphasis has its roots in the classical the-
ories of Blau (1964) and Simmel (1950), but it
was Emerson (1972b) who really transformed
the exchange approach from the study of the
actors who exchange to the study of the struc-
tures that govern exchange. The structure on
which Emerson and others have focused is
the structure of exchange networks—their
size, shape, and connections. As three decades
of path-breaking research have shown, net-
work structure is highly important; it defines
the opportunity structure for exchange and
120 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
affects the distribution of power among actors
and the inequality of benefits.1 But it is not the
only structure that matters in exchange relations.
Network structures describe how actors and
relations of direct exchange are connected to
one another. The structure of reciprocity de-
scribes, instead, how actors’ exchange behav-
iors and exchange benefits are connected to
one another. My work has focused on two key
dimensions of structure that underlie and distin-
guish different forms of exchange: first, whether
benefits can flow unilaterally or only bilaterally
between actors; second, whether benefits are
reciprocated directly or indirectly. These two
dimensions distinguish among three primary
forms of social exchange: direct negotiated
exchange, direct reciprocal exchange, and indi-
rect or generalized exchange (Figure 1).
The first dimension, whether benefits
flow unilaterally or bilaterally, distinguishes
between the two forms of direct exchange—
negotiated and reciprocal—that were the
original focus of my theorizing and my
research (Figure 1a, b). In reciprocal
exchange, benefits flow unilaterally: Each
actor’s outcomes depend solely on another’s
individual actions (A gives to B, and B gives
to A). This means that actors can initiate
exchanges that are not reciprocated, and vice
versa. In contrast, when exchanges are negoti-
ated, each actor’s outcomes depend on the joint
actions of self and other, and the flow of bene-
fits is always bilateral: Actors jointly negotiate
an agreement that provides benefits for both
actors (A and B), whether equal or unequal.
To understand what this difference means
for the flow of benefits in exchange networks,
consider the simple three-actor network in
Figure 2. In this negatively connected network
(Emerson 1972b), actors choose among part-
ners who are alternative sources of the same
DIRECT RECIPROCITY
A B
A B
A B
a. Unilateral Flow of Benefits in Reciprocal Exchange
b. Bilateral Flow of Benefits in Negotiated Exchange
INDIRECT RECIPROCITY
A B
C
c. Unilateral Flow of Benefits inChain-generalized Exchange
Figure 1. The Structure of Reciprocity in Three Forms of Exchange
A
B1 B2
Figure 2. A Three-Actor Exchange Network
Note: Solid lines indicate potential relations with
high exchange value, and dashed lines indicate
potential relations with low exchange value.
1 This work includes research by Cook, Emerson, and
their associates on power-dependence theory (Cook and
Emerson 1978; Cook and Yamagishi 1992); by Willer,
Markovsky, and their associates on network exchange
theory (Markovsky, Willer, and Patton 1988); by Friedkin
(1992) on expected value theory; and by Bienenstock and
Bonacich (1992) on game theoretic solutions.
THE STRUCTURE OF RECIPROCITY 121
resource, such as raw materials or advice.
Each actor has two alternative partners, as
indicated by the lines connecting them.
When exchanges are negotiated, actors in
the network explore potential exchanges
with each of their alternative partners until
they reach an agreement with one particular
partner. That agreement creates a dyadic
unit; it specifies the benefits that each actor
will receive from the exchange, and the
mutual exchange of those benefits forms a dis-
crete, self-contained transaction. In some net-
works, like this one, the creation of that
dyadic unit (e.g., an agreement between A
and B1) can leave other actors (B2) with no
agreement and no benefits.
In contrast, when exchanges are reciprocal,
exchange activity is not restricted to dyadic
units. Benefits flow unilaterally, from one
actor to another, and all actors in the network
can initiate exchange with another actor at
any given time. Some initiations may be recip-
rocated immediately, others later, and some
never. For example, in this network, both Bs
might initiate exchange with A, say by giving
some kind of assistance to A, while A recipro-
cates B1’s giving. B2’s giving to A is not recip-
rocated immediately, but might be later—and
in the meantime, A still benefits from B2’s giv-
ing. Because acts of unilateral giving are recip-
rocated over time, in the course of ongoing
relations rather than discrete transactions, the
unit of exchange necessarily becomes the rela-
tion of recurring interactions between actors
that Emerson (1972a) envisioned as the small-
est unit of analysis in exchange theory. This
relation takes the form of a series of sequen-
tially contingent, individual acts, in which dis-
crete transactions are difficult to identify
because the same act that completes one
exchange often initiates another.
Later in the program we incorporated
a third form of exchange in our analysis—
generalized exchange (Molm, Collett, and
Schaefer 2007). Generalized exchange adds
a second dimension to the structure of reci-
procity, whether reciprocity is direct or indi-
rect (Figure 1c). In generalized exchange,
one actor gives benefits to another, and
receives benefits from another, but not from
the same actor. Benefits flow unilaterally, as
in reciprocal exchange, but reciprocity is indi-
rect. A’s giving to B is not reciprocated
directly, by B’s giving to A (as in reciprocal
and negotiated exchange), but rather by a third
party in the social circle, whom we can call C.
A, B, and C might compose a chain-general-
ized system of exchange (as shown in Figure
1c), or they might be part of a larger, more
diffuse network, with no defined structure—
what Takahashi (2000) has called ‘‘pure-
generalized’’ exchange. In structures of indi-
rect reciprocity, each actor is dependent not
on a single other, as in direct forms of
exchange, but on all actors who contribute to
maintaining the collective system (Yamagishi
and Cook 1993).
For many years, sociologists paid little
attention to generalized exchange. Homans
(1961) felt strongly that exchange theorists
should concentrate their attention on direct
exchanges, and we did. But along with schol-
ars from other disciplines, sociologists are
increasingly recognizing both the prevalence
of generalized reciprocity in modern social
life and its role in the production of societal
cooperation. Generalized exchange is not sim-
ply a form of interaction that occurred in the
primitive societies studied by early anthropol-
ogists (Levi-Strauss 1969; Malinowski 1922;
Mauss 1925), but a common and important
feature of business organizations, neighbor-
hoods, and the vast and growing network of
online communities (Kollock 1999; Lazega
and Pattison 1999; Uehara 1990).
Integrative Outcomes of the Structure of
Reciprocity
When I began this research program, I was
interested in studying how different forms of
exchange, varying on these dimensions of
reciprocity, affect power use. Because of the
differences in how benefits flow through net-
works in negotiated and reciprocal exchange,
the effects of network structure on power—
particularly the effects of actors’ access to
alternative partners—should differ for the
two forms of exchange. My colleagues and I
found some support for these predictions
(Molm, Peterson, and Takahashi 1999), but
122 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
the most interesting findings were unexpected
and serendipitous.
In addition to our behavioral measures of
exchange and power use, we asked subjects
to evaluate their partners and relationships
on a series of semantic differential scales
that were included in a post-experimental
questionnaire. When we examined subjects’
responses, we found striking differences
between the two forms of exchange on a vari-
ety of affective dimensions. These findings
essentially changed the course of the research
program and led to a new focus on what I call
integrative outcomes: outcomes that reflect
how exchange brings people together, through
the emergence of bonds of trust, affective re-
gard, and solidarity.2
This movement from the study of power
to the study of trust and affective bonds
was part of a more general shift during the
1990s, particularly among power-depen-
dence theorists, including my colleagues
Karen Cook and Edward Lawler.3 It marked
a return to the classical roots of the exchange
tradition and a recognition of the dual effects
that mutual dependence can have on rela-
tionships: what Peter Blau (1964) called
‘‘differentiation’’ (processes of power and
conflict) and ‘‘integration’’ (processes of
attraction and cohesion). The study of power
and inequality that dominated exchange
work during the 1980s and into the 1990s
was about differentiation; the study of trust,
commitment, and affective bonds is about
integration. Our return to these topics also
coincided with the growing interest of orga-
nizational, political, and social network the-
orists in the development of social capital
and the well-being of communities (Paxton
2002; Portes 1998; Putnam 1993).
Over the years, as the research program
developed and a theory of reciprocity began
to take shape, my colleagues and I studied
a variety of integrative bonds, reflecting ties
to both the exchange partner and the relation-
ship. Here is a brief summary of what we
found in many experiments over the years:
First, actors engaged in reciprocal exchange
trust their partners more, express more affec-
tive regard for them, and feel more committed
to them than actors engaged in negotiated
exchange (Molm, Takahashi, and Peterson
2000). They also perceive their relationships
as more united and harmonious—as relations
between partners rather than adversaries
(Molm, Collett, and Schaefer 2007).
Second, behaviors that signal the exchange
partner’s trustworthiness—such as their behav-
ioral commitment to the actor—have stronger
effects on trust and affect when exchanges
are reciprocal rather than negotiated (Molm
et al. 2000). Actors who negotiate agreements
are just as likely to form behavioral commit-
ments, but these commitments are less likely
to translate into affective bonds.
Third, despite the seemingly greater proce-
dural fairness of negotiated exchange (the
joint decision-making, greater ‘‘voice,’’
advance knowledge of terms), actors perceive
their partner’s treatment of them as fairer
when exchanges are reciprocal, both for ex-
changes that are objectively equal and ones
that are objectively unequal (Molm, Takaha-
shi, and Peterson 2003). Actors are also
more willing to participate in unequal ex-
changes that disadvantage them when ex-
changes are reciprocal rather than negotiated
(Molm, Collett, and Schaefer 2006).
Fourth, generalized exchange produces
stronger integrative bonds, on all of these di-
mensions (greater trust, affective regard, and
solidarity), than either form of direct
exchange (Molm et al. 2007).
All of these effects are independent of
key dimensions of behavior: Actors who
engage in exchanges with the same fre-
quency and the same equality (or inequality)
feel differently about their partners and
2 I define trust as the belief that the exchange partner
can be relied upon to help, rather than to exploit, the actor.
Affective regard refers to positive feelings toward the
partner, combined with positive evaluations of the part-
ner’s character. Solidarity is the actor’s assessment of
the relationship with the partner as one of unity and har-
mony, a partnership that is mutually beneficial to both.3 See, for example, Cook’s work on trust (Cook 2005;
Cook and Hardin 2001; Cook, Hardin, and Levi 2005);
Lawler and Yoon’s work on relational cohesion theory
(Lawler and Yoon 1993, 1996, 1998), and Lawler’s
(2001) affect theory of exchange.
THE STRUCTURE OF RECIPROCITY 123
relationships when those exchanges take dif-
ferent forms. These effects are also indepen-
dent of the resources exchanged, the value of
the resources, the structure of the network,
and the history of association among actors.
They are solely the product of how exchange
is experienced under different structures of
reciprocity, and what those different experi-
ences mean for the emergence of integrative
bonds.
A Theory of Reciprocity in Social Exchange
So, what is it about that experience that
produces these strong and consistent effects?
The reciprocity theory of exchange that we
developed and tested in the second phase of
the project links the structure of reciprocity
to integrative bonds through its effects on
a set of risk- and conflict-based mechanisms
(Molm et al. 2007), as shown in Figure 3.
First, the unilateral flow of benefits in
reciprocal and generalized exchange makes
exchange risky and uncertain. When actors
give to another with no assurance of reciproc-
ity, they risk potential loss—giving to another
while receiving little or nothing in return.
And when reciprocity is indirect, rather than
direct, risk is even greater; actors are depen-
dent on the actions of multiple others in a col-
lective system rather than on a single other.
Risk increases integrative bonds by promot-
ing trust; as many scholars have recognized,
risk is a necessary condition for proving
one’s own trustworthiness, and for judging
another’s (Kelley and Thibaut 1978; Kollock
1994; Molm et al. 2000; Yamagishi and Ya-
magishi 1994).
In addition to building trust, acts of reciproc-
ity that are voluntary and uncertain—rather than
a taken-for-granted part of a bilateral agreement
—convey expressive value, over and above
the instrumental benefits of exchange (Molm
et al. 2007). In direct exchange, such acts
communicate regard for the partner and a desire
to continue the relationship (Kollock and
O’Brien 1992; Kranton 1996; Offer 1997).
Acts of indirect reciprocity convey even greater
expressive value, because they benefit another
to whom the giver owes no direct debt and at
the same time contribute to maintaining a co-
llective enterprise that benefits the network as
a whole.
The structure of reciprocity also affects
integrative bonds by making either the
competitive or the cooperative aspects of
mixed-motive exchanges more salient to the
actors (Molm et al. 2006). Bilateral flows of
benefit heighten awareness of the competi-
tive, conflictual elements, while unilateral
flows mute their salience, by making it harder
for actors to compare what each receives
from exchange, and by diffusing responsibil-
ity for both the costs and the inequalities of
exchange. Indirect reciprocity further reduces
the salience of conflict, by removing any
direct reciprocal relation between benefactor
and recipient. Heightened awareness of con-
flict increases sensitivity to inequalities in
exchange (Deutsch 2000) and increases
Structure of Causal IntegrativeReciprocity Mechanisms Bonds
+
−
+
−
+ +Unilateral vs. Bilateral
Flow of Benefits
Indirect vs. DirectReciprocity
Risk of Nonreciprocity
Expressive Value
Salience of Conflict
Trust
Affective Regard
Solidarity
Figure 3. Causal Model for the Reciprocity Theory of Social Exchange
124 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
actors’ tendencies to perceive the partner’s
behavior in a negative light (Hegtvedt and
Killian 1999).
Our research supported the independent
effects of all three of these causal mecha-
nisms, and also produced new findings sug-
gesting that no single mechanism could
account for all of the differences between
the forms of exchange:
First, increasing the riskiness of negotiated
exchanges, by making agreements nonbind-
ing, should increase trust, and it does
(Molm, Schaefer, and Collett 2009). But the
trust produced is less resilient—less forgiving
of the partner’s occasional digressions from
trustworthiness—and less affect-based than
the trust between reciprocal exchange part-
ners. In reciprocal exchanges, trust and affec-
tive regard for the partner go hand-in-hand; in
negotiated exchanges, trust is not tied to
affective bonds, and it is quickly destroyed
when the other’s trustworthiness is less than
ideal.
Second, we can reduce the differences
between reciprocal and negotiated exchange
by making conflict more salient in reciprocal
exchange (Molm et al. 2006). But the gap
between the two forms of exchange in feel-
ings and perceptions never closes completely,
and actors remain far more willing to partici-
pate in unequal reciprocal exchanges that dis-
advantage them than in unequal negotiated
exchanges.
Third, under some conditions actors allo-
cate their reciprocal giving, and their feelings
of trust and affective regard, to different part-
ners, exchanging most often with the partner
whose resources are more valuable, but form-
ing stronger integrative bonds with the partner
whose reciprocity is more constant (Molm
et al. 2007). These bonds of trust and solidarity
contribute to building reserves of social capital
that may influence behavioral choices in the
future; for example, when choosing a partner
for a new and risky endeavor.
IMPLICATIONS FOR ORGANIZATIONS,
EMBEDDEDNESS, AND SOCIAL CAPITAL
The structure of reciprocity has consequen-
ces not only for interpersonal relationships, but
for organizations and communities. For many
years scholars assumed that forms of exchange
based on direct reciprocity or generalized rec-
iprocity were fairly irrelevant in large, com-
plex, modern societies, in which many
transactions occur among strangers and bind-
ing agreements are necessary to reduce risk.
We tended to associate these forms of
exchange, and their reliance on repeated inter-
actions among the same actors, with small,
close-knit communities, or exchanges among
family and friends.
We now recognize that these assumptions
were incorrect, or at least overstated. Recip-
rocal and generalized forms of exchange are
neither rare nor unimportant in modern life.
Since Granovetter’s (1985) classic work,
sociologists have increasingly documented
the extent to which even economic exchanges
are embedded in networks of social relation-
ships with diverse structures of reciprocity.
In the organizational literature, scholars com-
monly distinguish between purely ‘‘arms-
length’’ market exchanges characterized by
negotiated deals with monetary outcomes
and reciprocal exchanges embedded in long-
term relationships in which domains of value
expand beyond the purely economic (Kranton
1996; Larson 1992; Uzzi 1996). More
recently, organizational theorists have shown
that generalized reciprocity explains patterns
of behavior in a variety of organizational
settings, including across units (Lazega and
Pattison 1999), across industries (Zuckerman
and Sgourev 2006), and within professional
collectives (Westphal and Zajac 1997).
These embedded relationships and gener-
alized exchange networks produce a number
of valuable outcomes: reduced transaction
costs, greater knowledge sharing, facilitated
decision-making, and forms of assistance
that would otherwise not occur (Kollock
1999; Levine and Baker 2008; Uzzi 1996).
Many of these benefits are tied, implicitly
or explicitly, to the development of trust
and affective bonds.
Organizational theorists have typically
attributed these positive outcomes to the per-
sonal nature of embedded relationships: the
history of association between actors, their
THE STRUCTURE OF RECIPROCITY 125
close personal ties, exchanges in multiple
resource domains, and so forth (Kranton
1996; Uzzi 1996). But as important as these
factors are, our research shows that recipro-
cal forms of exchange can produce strong
bonds of trust and solidarity between actors
even in the absence of a close personal
relationship, whereas repeated exchanges
between the same actors—even ones showing
strong evidence of behavioral commitment—
are less likely to generate bonds of trust and
affective attachment when those exchanges
are negotiated, especially when the actors in
the relationship are unequal in power.4
All of this suggests that the structure of
reciprocity is an underappreciated and
highly important aspect of creating social
capital through networks of relationships
and through embeddedness. Social capital
has been conceptualized in many ways, but
one of the most widely accepted is Nan
Lin’s (2002) definition of social capital as
access to resources through network ties.
This is the definition that Karen Cook used
in her 2004 Cooley-Mead address (Cook
2005), and it has the advantage of emphasiz-
ing the source of social capital—our connec-
tions to others, and to their networks—rather
than its outcomes, such as trust. While net-
work ties may be a necessary ingredient for
building social capital, though, I would
argue that they are not a sufficient one. Just
as organizational theorists have found that
networks need strong, embedded ties as well
as weak, arms-length ties to produce the ben-
efits associated with social capital (Uzzi
1999), our work suggests that the structure
of reciprocity in these networks must include
either direct or generalized reciprocity, with
unilateral giving. In addition, the kinds of re-
sources that are usually associated with
social capital and acquired through network
ties—such as social support, information
about opportunities, informal kinds of ass-
istance—are most typically acquired, in
natural settings, through reciprocal or gener-
alized forms of exchange, not negotiated
exchange.
My current research, which is the final
phase of my long-term project on reciprocity,
is designed to link the social psychology of
reciprocity more directly with the organiza-
tional literature, by studying relations in
which different forms of exchange are com-
bined in more complex relationships of
dynamic histories and contextual embedded-
ness. As organizational researchers have
documented, some relationships evolve over
time, changing in form from their initial his-
tory to their later development (DiMaggio
and Louch 1998). For example, a personal
relationship, characterized by reciprocal
exchange, may precede a business relation-
ship with negotiated transactions. In others,
the use of one form of exchange may be
embedded in a relationship that is based pri-
marily on a different form, with both forms
of exchange characterizing the relation at
a particular time and with the actors in the
relation experiencing both forms repeatedly
during their interaction. Although Granovet-
ter (1985) and others have focused on embed-
ded economic behavior, the direction of
embeddedness works in both ways: Just as
economic transactions are often embedded
in social relations, new social relationships
are sometimes reverse-embedded in eco-
nomic transactions (Uzzi 1996).
Our research abstracts one key element—
the form of exchange—from these complex
sets of relationship histories and contexts,
and tests, in a series of laboratory experi-
ments, how the earlier or dominant form of
exchange ‘‘sets the stage’’ for understanding
and responding to experiences with the later
or embedded form of exchange. This work is
one example of the ways in which laboratory
experiments and research in natural settings
can mutually inform and build upon
one another. We have recently completed
the first experiment, studying dynamic his-
tories of relationships, and our results so far
are quite striking, showing that any experi-
ence with reciprocal exchange, whether it
comes early in a relationship or later,
4 As Lawler and Yoon’s (1996, 1998) work shows,
repeated negotiated exchanges can lead to affective bonds
and feelings of commitment when actors are equal in
power.
126 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
fundamentally changes the affective character
of the relationship.
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE STRUCTURE
OF RECIPROCITY AND THE STRUCTURE
OF NETWORKS
The role of both networks and reciprocity in
the production of social capital raises a more
general question of how the structure of net-
works connecting actors, and the structure of
reciprocity connecting their behaviors and
benefits, are related to one another. Let me
briefly describe three aspects of their
relationship.
First, each structure has independent ef-
fects on integrative bonds, net of the other.
Integrative bonds are stronger in forms of
exchange with unilateral flows of benefit
and indirect reciprocity (Molm et al. 2000,
2007), and they are stronger in networks
with high mutual dependence and equal
power (Lawler and Yoon 1998).
Second, the two structures interact with
each other in their effects on integrative bonds.
Effects of the structure of reciprocity are
greater in networks of unequal power and
greater for power-disadvantaged actors than
for power-advantaged actors. Power differen-
ces accentuate the risk- and conflict-based
mechanisms that underlie effects of the struc-
ture of reciprocity (Molm et al. 2007). They
increase the risk and uncertainty of reciprocal
exchange, particularly for disadvantaged ac-
tors, and they increase the salience of conflict
in negotiated exchange—again, particularly
for disadvantaged actors. An important conse-
quence of these effects is that reciprocal
exchange reduces the differences in how actors
in an unequal power relation perceive each
other.
Third, exchange networks structure inter-
action in ways that either encourage repeated
exchanges between the same actors or reduce
the likelihood of such behavioral commit-
ments, and those commitments are important
for the development of integrative bonds—
especially in forms of exchange with unilat-
eral giving (Molm et al. 2000). In generalized
exchange, networks that create structured pat-
terns of giving, such as chain-generalized
exchange, encourage repeated acts of unilat-
eral giving from a particular benefactor to
a particular recipient. In direct exchange, net-
works that create differences in power—
differences in actors’ relative dependencies
on particular partners—affect the formation
of behavioral commitments (Cook and Emer-
son 1978). More dependent, less powerful ac-
tors will seek committed relations with their
more advantaged partners, to reduce uncer-
tainty, and whether their advantaged partners
reciprocate that commitment has strong ef-
fects on their feelings for them. But when
exchange networks are balanced on power,
offering all actors alternative partners who
are equally dependent on them and who offer
equivalent resources of equal value, actors
will be structurally indifferent as to whom
they exchange with, and they will be less
likely to develop regular patterns of reciproc-
ity with any particular partner. Commitment
could come from other sources—from com-
mon social identities, for example (Tajfel
and Turner 1986)—but it will not come
from the network structure.
These connections between the structure
of power in exchange networks, and the struc-
ture of reciprocity in different forms of
exchange, suggest an important link between
Blau’s (1964) processes of differentiation and
integration. Although power inequality
reduces integration, its negative effects can
be countered by forms of exchange with uni-
lateral giving. Reciprocal exchange enables
actors to overcome the divisions created by
power and to develop the trust and affective
bonds that promote productive exchange rela-
tions. As a result, power and trust need not be
mutually exclusive, as some have suggested
(e.g., Granovetter 2002).
IMPLICATIONS FOR ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT
ACTORS’ MOTIVATIONS
Finally, the structure of reciprocity may
affect our theories of exchange in a more
fundamental way, through its implications
for our assumptions about actors’ motiva-
tions. Virtually all exchange theories, from
classical to contemporary, assume that actors
THE STRUCTURE OF RECIPROCITY 127
are self-interested, seeking to increase out-
comes they positively value and decrease out-
comes they negatively value. This general
motivational assumption has been elaborated
in two distinct models. Rational actor models
assume actors cognitively weigh the potential
benefits and costs of alternatives, based on
available information, and make choices that
maximize outcomes over the long term.
Learning models assume, instead, that actors
simply respond to consequences of past ac-
tions, without conscious weighing of alterna-
tives, and often without maximizing
outcomes—especially if short-term and
long-term benefits are at odds.
The structure of reciprocity may affect
these assumptions in at least two ways. First,
it may affect which of these models—the
rational actor model or the learning model—
is a better fit for our theories. Just as Emerson
(1987) suggested that the role of rational cal-
culation versus conditioned learning may
depend on whether actors make comparisons
within or across value domains, so may ratio-
nal actor assumptions be more compatible
with negotiated transactions, which encour-
age actors to calculate and compare the rela-
tive benefits of alternative agreements, while
learning principles may apply more to recip-
rocal and generalized exchange, in which ac-
tors sequentially respond to other’s actions
over time. It is no surprise, I believe, that
with the rise of theorizing based on negoti-
ated exchanges, beginning in the late 1970s,
rational actor models also became more
common.
Second, the structure of reciprocity affects
the role of risk in behavioral choices. Although
the general motivational assumption of
exchange is that actors seek to gain benefits
and avoid losses, nearly all contemporary the-
ories base predictions on the first half of that
assumption—that actors try to maximize bene-
fits or profits. But my research on reciprocal
exchange—both my earlier study of coercive
power (Molm 1997), which focused exclu-
sively on reciprocal exchange, and my more
recent work comparing different forms of ex-
change—suggests that risk avoidance domi-
nates behavior in reciprocal exchange, with
actors opting for reciprocity even when it does
not maximize their outcomes. In reciprocal
exchange, both advantaged and disadvantaged
actors give to others as others give to them,
avoid unilateral giving for any extended
period, and choose steady, predictable com-
mitments over other, more profitable strate-
gies that would require accepting some
uncertainty and some short-term costs in order
to maximize long-term gain (Molm, Peterson,
and Takahashi 1999, 2001).5
That people are loss averse, and that losses
loom larger than equivalent gains in making
decisions, is now a well-established principle
of behavioral economics (Kahneman and
Tversky 1979; Tversky and Kahneman
1991). But it is a principle that most contem-
porary exchange theorists, focusing exclu-
sively on reward exchanges under relatively
risk-free conditions, have been able to ignore.
In my work on coercive power, loss aversion
explained why actors who were disadvan-
taged on reward power rarely used coercion
against their advantaged partners as a means
of reducing the inequality of their exchanges
(Molm 1997). Coercion was risky for these
highly dependent actors, and fear of loss con-
strained their actions. More generally, as risk
increases in social exchange, loss aversion
becomes more important. Consequently, we
should expect that minimizing losses would
be more important in reciprocal than in nego-
tiated exchange, and most important in gener-
alized exchange. And, indeed, opportunity
costs have the strongest suppressive effect
on generalized exchange, because they
increase risk in these already highly risky
structures (Molm et al. 2007).
5. The option of accepting some short-term costs in re-
turn for long-term gain assumes a continuing relation of
recurring exchanges between the same actors. This is an
assumption, more generally, of the social exchange
framework and power-dependence theory (Emerson
1972b; Molm 2006), and it characterizes the study of both
reciprocal and negotiated exchange in this research pro-
gram. At the same time, it is worth noting that while recip-
rocal exchange requires repeated interaction between
actors, negotiated exchange does not—negotiated trans-
actions can be either one-shot or recurring, and either
independent or serially dependent. For a more extended
discussion of these differences, see Molm (1994).
128 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
Finally, there is an additional motivation
that may explain why actors in reciprocal
exchange choose to give to others who give
to them, even when that exchange pattern
does not maximize their gains: as we have
seen, the act of reciprocity itself has value—
expressive value—over and above the instru-
mental value of benefits obtained through
exchange. Consequently, maintaining or
increasing the frequency of the partner’s rec-
iprocity may be a stronger motivation than
maximizing the value of the benefits obtained
from exchange. The possibility of this kind of
motivation in exchange is consistent not only
with the results of this research program, but
with recent work by Lawler and his associates
emphasizing the role of affective and emo-
tional processes in social exchange (Lawler
2001; Lawler and Yoon 1993).
CONCLUSION
Reciprocity is both a defining feature of
social exchange and a source of societal
cooperation and solidarity. Here, I have
briefly described a program of research and
a theory of reciprocity that offers a more
nuanced conception of reciprocity as a vari-
able characteristic of exchange whose effects
on solidarity and trust depend on its structure.
Forms of exchange in which actors recipro-
cate unilateral acts of giving, either directly
or indirectly, promote bonds of trust, affec-
tive regard, and solidarity by increasing risk
and uncertainty and by muting the salience
of conflict. Actors who engage in these forms
of exchange experience a fundamentally dif-
ferent relationship than actors who negotiate
bilateral agreements with binding terms. I
have suggested that the bonds of trust and sol-
idarity produced by particular structures of
reciprocity contribute to the creation of social
capital in communities and to our understand-
ing of the effects of embeddedness in org-
anizations. Both direct and generalized
reciprocity promote positive feelings and per-
ceptions of relationships that counter the neg-
ative effects of power inequality and that
strengthen the networks and communities of
which they are a part.
The theory I have outlined begins with
micro structures of reciprocity and describes
their effects on integrative bonds. But these
effects can also lead to structural change in
ways I have not considered here. Direct or
generalized reciprocity might not only
counter the negative effects of power inequal-
ity, but lead to efforts to change the structure
of power. Whether trust and solidarity
emerge, and to what extent, might affect
both the endurance of exchange relationships
and the stability of exchange networks. In
these and other ways, relations between micro
structures of reciprocity and more macro
structures of society are themselves likely to
be reciprocal.
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Linda D. Molm is professor of sociology at the University of Arizona. Her primary research interestis the experimental analysis of theories of social exchange, with particular emphasis on the relationsamong power, justice, risk, and trust. She is currently engaged in a long-term project, supported bythe National Science Foundation, comparing the effects of different forms of exchange on the devel-opment of integrative bonds of trust, regard, and solidarity. She is a past editor of Social PsychologyQuarterly, author of Coercive Power in Social Exchange (Cambridge, 1997; winner of the 1998 The-ory Prize of the ASA Section on Theory), and past Chair of both the ASA Sections on Social Psychol-ogy and on Theory.
THE STRUCTURE OF RECIPROCITY 131
