Maintenance Resources in Families Involve providing food shelter clothing and education to family members Maintenance Tasks Maintenance Strategies Reflect the priorities of the system involve decisions about the use of resources Resources Definition what a family has or can create to achieve its goals Role of Resources o Related to family s success the extent to which the outputs in a family result in the attainment of family and individual tasks or goals Ways they are used Allocation Exchange how a family divides time energy and money to attain its objectives trading one resource for another immediate or gradual Foa s Theory of Economic and Interpersonal Resource Management People depend on one another for the material and psychological resources necessary to their well being and they exchange these resources through interpersonal behavior A resource is defined as any commodity material or symbolic which is transmitted through interpersonal behavior Theory helps to understand the level of family functioning how families succeed Presents family management strategies Three Conditions of Exchange 1 The motivational state of the potential exchangers 2 The appropriateness of the environment 3 The properties of the resources to be exchanged Two dimensions 1 Concrete symbolic 2 Particularistic specific emotions universalistic not tied to a particular person INTERMEDIATE CONCRETE Specific Tangible Physical object SYMBOLIC Abstract Intangible Information ideas SYMBOLIC Psychological resources status information love CONCRETE Economic resources services goods money EXAMPLES o Get Well Card Particularistic symbolic Therefore it would go between love and status in the upper left corner o Telephone call from a loved one Particularistic and symbolic between love and status in the upper left corner if the person calling desires to discuss money owed to him her the call would be oriented toward the concrete end o A kiss Fairly particularistic and has both concreteness and symbolism o A job promotion Particularistic and symbolic upper left corner financial influence would be more concrete o A person s college education Particularistic and symbolic upper left corner Principles Derived from Foa s Theory Exchange Principle The closer two resources are on Foa s model the more easily they can be exchanged and the more likely the exchange will be effective o House for emotional security food for compassion car for son s respect money for love hug for love which is easiest to exchange Allocation Principle The closer the resources and goals on Foa s model the greater the likelihood that the resources can be used to attain the goals Foa Principle The closer two resource classes the more similar will be their rules Thus rules for economic exchange are one set of rules covering one subset of resources Different rules exist for the exchange of other resources Operating Rules Time it takes different amounts of time to process economic and social resources Relationship Optimum group size will determine economic resource allocation smaller is preferred Delay of reward economic resource delay produces disruption for both parties involved Giving and receiving Complexity