This essay is written to understand the nature of human behavior in the context of everyday life using the perspective of theory of social exchange and cognitive dissonance. First of all, it will be about the definition of the two theories. Then, founder of theories and development of theories, main concept of theories, application of theories and critiques of theories and finally, the conclusion. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Talking about social exchange theory; social means when members of a group come together informally to have fun. It also means relating to leisure activities that involve meeting other people. The meaning of exchange is the act of giving and receiving another in return. Therefore, the definition of social exchange theory is that it proposes that social behavior is the result of an exchange process. The goal of this exchange is to maximize profits and minimize costs. In another sense, social exchange theory is social behavior in the interaction of two parties that implement benefit cost analysis to determine risks and benefits. We will then talk about cognitive dissonance; Cognitive is when a person engages in conscious intellectual activity such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering. Whereas dissonance means the lack of agreement or harmony between people or things. Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. This produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to a modification of one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. We will then discuss the history of social exchange theory and cognitive dissonance theory. Social exchange theory was first developed by sociologists George Homans, who wrote about it in an essay titled "Social Behavior as Exchange." Later, sociologists Peter Blau and Richard Emerson developed this theory. This theory was formally advanced in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the work of sociologists George Homans (1961) and Peter Blau (1964) and in the work of social psychologists John Thibaut and Harold Kelley (1959). Over the years, multiple perspectives of exchange have evolved rather than a distinct theory of exchange. The exchange framework is based on the combination of the central principles of behaviorism and elementary economics where human behavior is viewed in terms of its gains. The framework is primarily interested in the factors that intervene in the formation, maintenance and breakdown of relationships and the exchange dynamics within them. Talking about the history of cognitive dissonance theory, it was first published by Leon Fenstinger in 1957. The event that inspired him to develop the theory occurred more than two decades before the release of his book. On January 15, 1934, the Himalayan region of southern Nepal and northern India experienced a magnitude 8.1 earthquake. The death toll exceeded 10,000. While residents of the worst-hit areas tried to cope with the damage, those in neighboring villages were struck by terror. Rumors began to spread in these surrounding areas of greater disasters to come. Although these villagers suffered no damage from the earthquake, they are convinced that floods, cyclones and earthquakesland of greater intensity would soon devastate the areas in which they lived. Twenty years later, Festinger and a group of colleagues became interested in why these frightening rumors were created when there was so little evidence to support them. After careful consideration, Festinger concluded that the rumors were created to justify the extreme fear and anxiety of these villagers. felt after experiencing such a close call. Although a certain degree of equipment was understandable, there was no rational explanation for this phenomenon. Intense levels of worry gripped these villagers since they had only felt minor shaking. The dissonance between feeling extreme fear (cognition #1) and realizing that there really wasn't much to fear (cognition #2) needed to be resolved. To achieve this, the villagers apparently changed one of their beliefs, convincing themselves that there really was something to fear. This initial idea that people can change their beliefs to justify how they feel is what later evolved into cognitive dissonance theory. The main concept of social exchange theory is that an interaction that elicits approval from another person is more likely to be repeated than an interaction that elicits approval from another person. interaction that arouses disapproval. Thus, predicting whether a particular interaction will be repeated by calculating the degree of reward (approval) or punishment (disapproval) resulting from the interaction. If the reward for an interaction exceeds the punishment, then the interaction is likely to occur or continue. According to this theory, the formula for predicting the behavior of any individual in any situation is: Behavior (benefits) = rewards of interaction – costs of interaction, costs of interaction interaction represent the resources available to maintain the relationship and represent a loss for the individuals. This includes persistent discomfort, time, effort, and opportunities lost by investing in one relationship over another. Interaction rewards (benefits) are the reward obtained from a relationship in which a person is involved and can include material or immaterial things. These benefits can be affection, support, social status, pleasure, money, possessions, or even subtle everyday gestures like a smile, a nod, or a pat on the back. According to social exchange theory, humans weigh costs versus benefits when forming relationships. The 3 propositions of the social exchange theory; success, when an individual sees that he is rewarded for his actions, he tends to repeat the action. Stimulus: The more a particular stimulus has resulted in a reward in the past, the more likely the person will respond to it. The third proposition is satiation by deprivation: the more a person has received a particular reward in the recent past, the less valuable any additional unit of that reward becomes. Main idea of ​​cognitive dissonance; Cognitive dissonance theory is important because it plays a role in many judgments, decisions, and evaluations. This theory makes people aware of the impact of conflicting beliefs on the decision-making process and is a great way to improve your ability to make faster, more accurate choices. Cognitive dissonance typically occurs in a situation where an individual must choose between two incompatible beliefs or actions. The greatest dissonance is created when both alternatives are equally attractive. Furthermore, the change in attitudeis more likely in the direction of less incentive since this results in less dissonance. In this regard, dissonance theory is contradictory to most behavioral theories which predict greater attitude change with increased incentive. Two factors affect the strength of dissonance: the number of dissonant beliefs and the importance given to each belief. There are three ways to eliminate dissonance; the first is to reduce the importance of the dissonant beliefs, the second is to add more consonant beliefs that outweigh the dissonant beliefs, or the third is to modify the dissonant beliefs so that they are no longer inconsistent. Application of social exchange theory is generally interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication is the interaction or communication between people. Social exchange theory applies in a situation where a person is involved in a situation where they include the costs (negative) as well as the benefits (positive), then they will receive benefits. For example, when a mother asks her children to do some household chores and the children are responsible for that, the house would be clean. Another example, when a student is involved in a group project, his teammate is bossy but is doing well in his studies, so the benefit is that he had an excellent project. The other example, a student had to choose a partner between two of his best friends for a school project, one of his best friends wants to partner with him but this person is not cooperative and the other best friend is good at doing group projects. ; teamwork and leadership. Therefore, he must take the risk to direct him and make him cooperate in the project. Application to cognitive dissonance, it occurs when a person finds themselves in a dilemma (a situation in which a difficult choice must be made between two or more alternatives). Cognitive dissonance is of great importance in our daily lives. One of the examples is that when a student is given tasks or homework by the teacher, he will have two thoughts in his mind, one of the thoughts would be that he wants to do the assignment earlier and the other would be that he still has it. plenty of time to do homework. Therefore, to avoid dissonance, the student should add new thoughts by saying that this person has a lot of homework to do and so it is better to start early. Another example, when a person is on a diet, their mentality is not to eat much and avoid eating too many sugary foods and carbohydrates, but their mother's spaghetti that day was delicious, so this person can't stop eating again because this person thinks they can start their diet the next day. One of the benefits of social exchange theory is that social exchange has been used to explain why some women stay in abusive relationships. Rusbult and Martz (1955) argued that when investments are high and alternatives low, it can still be considered a profit-making situation and a woman may choose to stay in such a relationship. Other benefits are that support can be found by examining how people in relationships handle potential alternatives; One way to deal with these potential threats is to reduce them in order to protect the relationship. Simpson et al (1990) asked participants to rate members of the opposite sex in terms of attractiveness: already involved participants gave lower ratings. We will then discuss the disadvantages of social exchange theory. Social exchange theory does not explain why some people leave