2003 Volume 13 Issue 2 Pages 179-187
This paper analyzes the emergence of restricted social exchange relationships in a society through computer simulations to see if such social exchange will be characterized as ‘balanced reciprocity.’ An agent is assumed to have either the noncooperative strategy or the exchange strategy (TFT). How TFT works depends on the values of its two dimensions: ‘upper limit of giving’ and ‘aspiration level.’ The simulation results revealed the following: TFT established social exchange in simulated societies; the agents who had the same value of a strategy dimension were likely to exchange with each other; and social exchange tended to be balanced. When the society was stratified so that there were rich agents and poor agents, stratification of sociability was observed; that is, a rich agent tends to exchange with the rich and a poor agent with the poor. These simulation results implied that social exchange may bring about social differentiation and that sub-cultures with different exchange rules may emerge within a society.
