Humans Are Selfish



Humans Are Selfish

When I got admission in this college, I was pretty excited. This was like a dream come true. I had always wanted to get into this kind of college and was very positive that I would take no time to get settled in its environment. The only thing that was of a bit of bother to me was I had no friends along. But then I was confident that I would make some in no time.

The early days of the college went smooth and I was quite happy with the way things were going. My class was one of the best I ever had- well that was what I thought. Everybody was friendly with me and appeared that they would not refrain from extending a helping hand to me whenever I needed it. I was an average student and always used to discuss my work and assignments to be done with my fellows. That however does not mean that I was not hardworking. A week passed by in the college and we started getting assignments and other things to do. This was the time when I realized that humans are mean and selfish.

Communication can be defined in many different ways. It is the process by which people interact with each other, try to understand and manage the meanings of the matters of daily life (Marianne Dainton, 2010). There are many theories of communication put up by the communication gurus of the world. Out of these many theories social exchange theory is one.

The social exchange theory tries to explain the reason behind the maintenance and the breaking up of relationships between individuals. It suggests that social behavior is the result of an exchange process.  The purpose of this exchange is to minimize costs and maximize benefits. Costs are things that are negatives to the individual such as having to put time, money and effort into a relationship. The benefits are the positive things that the individual gets out the relationship such as friendship, fun, social support and companionship.

There are three general assumptions that the theory follows. The first assumption is that the relationships between people function on the assumption of benefits and costs it brings along. The second assumption is that people want to minimize their losses and maximize the benefits that the relationships bring along themselves. The last and the shortest assumption is that humans are selfish (www.communique.utwente.nl).

Social exchange is viewed as the exchange of activity, either tangible or intangible, keeping in view the costs and benefits relationships, between at least two people. Cost is viewed primarily in terms of alternative activities or opportunities sacrificed by the actors involved (Karen S. Cook, 2003). This theory applies to my example of the incident as the circumstances that I was going through were the same as the social exchange theory explains. People were bilding relationships after understanding the costs and benefits that the relationships brought along. They were always trying to maximize the benefits that they could ...