Deal Or No Deal: The Exchange Theory At Work

that not studying would be too risky, he or she will study; however, if the student would benefit more from doing something other than studying, like going to work or getting enough sleep, he or she will do this instead. Anyone who has seen the TV show, Deal or No Deal, has seen the exchange theory at work. Contestants on the show want to win as much money as they possibly can in their briefcase but struggle to make decisions, knowing that they could potentially lose out on winning even more money from the banker, or in a different briefcase. On a larger scale, an example of exchange theory would be a nation voting for a president. These citizens want to vote for the candidate who will do more good than harm. The exchange theory is useful,

Functionalists do this by looking at the structures that make up the society and how they together serve to keep it running properly (Carl, 2011). Examples of these societal structures include: governments, families, economies, and schools (Carl, 2011). Functionalists believe that these connected structures are necessary to keep a society stable, and when there is a problem within a society, functionalists examine the faults within a society’s structures to find the source of the problem. This theory has a generally optimistic view of society, in that one of its key ideas is that societies will inherently balance themselves out in order to function correctly (Carl, 2011). The reasoning behind this is that if there is nothing wrong within a society, there will be no need for change. Furthermore, if problems do arise that disrupt the proper function of a society, then change will occur. Despite the hopeful idea that society’s problems will always be resolved for the better, which this optimistic theory provides, that may not always be the case. This theory doesn’t take into consideration the fact that issues within a society may be overlooked by those who have the power to fix them. This may be because the issue isn’t known or isn’t considered important enough to address. If a society doesn’t even recognize or acknowledge that a problem exists, how can it fix the problem in order to be functioning at its fullest capability? Another fault of this theory is that society can’t always run perfectly for everyone. People have different needs and ideas of what is best, so there may always be a person or a group of people who are not benefiting from society. The best a society can hope to do is meet the needs of as many individuals as possible, but that still leaves the problem of