Sociology Plus
Stark-Bainbridge Theory Definition
The Stark-Bainbridge theory posits that human behaviour is fundamentally driven by the pursuit of rewards, which are things individuals are prepared to expend costs to secure. When highly desired rewards are scarce or unavailable directly, individuals often seek compensators—promises or explanations for obtaining those rewards in the future—as substitutes. This framework explores how the desire for unattainable goals leads people to accept intangible promises rather than immediate attainment.
Core Concepts: Rewards and Compensators
The theory hinges on the distinction between rewards and compensators. A reward is defined as anything one is prepared to expend costs to obtain. In contrast, a compensator is not merely an I.O.U.; it represents the promise of a future reward or an explanation detailing how that reward might be secured. Compensators are essentially intangible substitutes for desired rewards, often involving postulations about attainment in a distant or unverifiable context. For instance, seeking immortality or a transformed world involves accepting compensators rather than pursuing direct means, as these rewards are of such magnitude and scarcity that only supernatural explanations can credibly generate them.
Implications for Religion and Secularisation
The theory suggests that the failure of naturalistic systems to provide credible compensators for immense human desires leads to the substitution of the supernatural. This dynamic has profound implications for religious organisation and societal change, particularly concerning secularisation. The theory proposes that secularisation is a self-limiting process: as major religious denominations decline, they are replaced by new faiths offering more compelling compensators, often those of a more supernaturalistic kind.
This shift is driven by the fact that organisations addressing fundamental human desires tend to adopt super-naturalistic premises when naturalistic explanations fail. This dynamic leads to the emergence of new religious movements (cults) as sectarian schisms within existing traditions, which ultimately may give rise to entirely new religions that restore a certain level of religious presence in society, albeit under a different dominant source.
Criticisms and Limitations
While Stark and Bainbridge argue for a self-limiting nature of secularisation driven by religious innovation, the evidence supporting this claim is contested. Critics point out that the mere availability for recruitment into new faiths does not equate to actual impact on the mass of the unchurched population. Furthermore, the scale of decline in established denominations does not correlate directly with the growth of new religious movements across different societies. The theory also faces philosophical difficulties regarding the concept of compensator itself. Critics argue that explanations are not true substitutes for rewards; they describe means to an end but do not substitute for the attainment of the reward itself.
Finally, the theory is criticised for its materialistic assumptions. Stark and Bainbridge appear to assume that rewards are only acceptable if they are tangible, concrete, and immediate, failing to account for intangible desires or rewards that may be sought in the distant future. This focus on the immediate and concrete risks reducing religious belief to mere compensation rather than genuine desire, leading some critics to suggest that the theory inadvertently reinforces reductionist errors found in earlier sociological thought.