Piaget's sociology revisited

This paper re-examines Piaget's account of social values and social exchang e, and looks at some of the difficulties it presents. Although Piaget claim s that his theory of social exchange forms the basis of his account of econ omic exchange, a closer examination shows that the model for Piaget's theor y is rather the marginal utility theory of economics. This assumes that we attempt to maximise utility in our economic transactions with others. But a s economic behaviour is also influenced by psychological and social factors , it is doubtful whether it forms a good model for describing economic let alone social behaviour. As social exchange theory takes reciprocity, the gi ving of like for like, as its basic principle, self-interest plays an impor tant role in Piaget's theory and only ceases to do so on a normative ration al level. It is argued that some forms of spontaneous behaviour cannot be d escribed in terms of reciprocity. If this is the case, Piaget's attempt to formulate an all embracing scheme to cover our spontaneous, economic and no rmative activities, would appear to fail. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. Al l rights reserved.