In general, as social distance between individuals within a society increases, transactions become more impersonal and more concerned with immediate profit. However, some kinds of transactions between societies are embedded in institutional contexts called visiting trade institutions, which include elements usually characteristic of the most intimate within‐society relationships, such as pseudo‐kin ties (e.g., trading partnerships), gift‐giving, and other ceremonies.
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Karl G. Heider (1969) studied this question.