互助行为弥散在乡土社会的日常生活之中，嵌入于社会关系里面。通过互助实践，人们不仅可以激活和创设自己的社会关系网络，而且在对社会关系的运用中，逐步习得为人处世的基本规范，从容应付生活中的各种处境。互助行为的变迁，反映了人们行为逻辑和交往规则的调整以及社会关系的变动，折射出了乡土社会的流变。

现有的研究关注到了互助的不同侧面，但要理解具体情境中的互助，则必须要坚持总体性的实践视角。互惠研究看到了社会结构中个体之间的关联，力图解释人与人之间的联结纽带，刻画社会构成的基本原则，以及与这些原则相符的规则秩序是如何塑造人的行为。社会心理学的研究关注到了本土文化的独特性对人心理和行为的影响，希望在本土的文化语境和概念中，凸显出人的主观能动性，解释其行为的心理压力及其社会来源。经济社会学的分析明确了人们做出利益计算的基本原则，指出了人们经济动机的社会根源，加入了对人们利益好恶的分析。但是，作为总体性的社会事实，互助启动的是与之相关的各种关系和制度，仅仅关注某一方面，并不能深入理解互助及其变迁。从总体性出发，以人文主义的视角去实践性地理解互助，能较好地克服这一问题。实践理论兼顾了客观的关系系统、社会结构与人的主观性，从实践性去理解互助，能够较好地统合规则秩序、文化心理和利益关系分析的长处，揭示人们在具体社会情境中行动的动态过程与心理活动。

在实践性社会关系中，我们能够理解互助行为的发生机制与社会性意涵。在产生互助需求之后，互助双方依据经验对标的进行测算，评估出互助的成本收益，在社会关系之中遴选合适的求助对象，综合情境因素和心理成本，最终确定和谁发生互助。限定性互助和社会性互助是对互助不同层次的理解，二者相辅相成，给出了在总体性视角之下理解互助社会性意涵的方向，限定性互助的变化会引起社会性互助的变动。

实践性社会关系是对社会关系二重性的概括表达。社会关系的二重性为互助提供了基本的关系图谱和标的测算的依据，同时留下了权变的空间。结构性回答了人们受到的客观约束条件如何影响人们的认知判断，实践性指出了人们如何做出与情境相符的权宜，调和关系结构与互助的错位，并使其合于时势。

社会变迁集中体现为生计模式的改变。人们经济生活状况的改善、国家社会市场的系统整合、不平等和异质性的加剧以及公共性的消解是互助行为异化的重要因素。在社会变迁之下，一方面互助的需求消失、减少和被替代，另一方面人们互动交往减少，关系陌生，出现新的差序格局，互助随之异化。事实上，互助行为的萎缩正是人们无法平衡行为的收益认知，心理成本攀升的结果。

Mutual aid behavior is diffused in the daily life of the rural society and embedded in social relationships. Through the practice of mutual aid, people can not only activate and create their own social relationship network, but also gradually acquire the basic norms for dealing with social relationships and interpersonal relationships in the world through the use of social relationships, so as to cope with various situations in life with ease. The change of mutual aid behavior reflects the adjustment of people's behavioral logic and rules of interaction as well as the change of social relations, reflecting the changes of rural society.

Existing research has focused on different aspects of mutual aid, but to understand mutual aid in specific contexts, it is necessary to adhere to an overall practical perspective. Reciprocal research sees the connections between individuals in the social structure, seeks to explain the bonds that bind people together, and portrays the basic principles of social composition and how the rules and order consistent with these principles shape human behavior. Research in social psychology has focused on the influence of the uniqueness of indigenous cultures on human psychology and behavior, hoping to highlight human subjectivity in indigenous cultural contexts and concepts, and to explain the psychological pressures on their behavior and their social sources. The analysis of economic sociology clarifies the basic principles of people making interest calculations, points out the social roots of people's economic motivations, and incorporates the analysis of people's interest preferences. However, as an overall social fact, mutual aid initiates various relationships and institutions associated with it, and focusing on one aspect alone does not allow for a deeper understanding of mutual aid and its changes. A practical understanding of mutual aid from a humanist perspective, starting from the totality, can better overcome this problem. By taking into account the objective relational system, social structure and human subjectivity, a practical understanding of mutual aid can better integrate the strengths of rule and order, cultural psychology and interest analysis, and reveal the dynamic process and psychological activities of people's actions in specific social situations.

In practical social relationships, we can understand the mechanism and social meaning of mutual aid behavior. After the demand for mutual aid is generated, both parties assess the cost-benefit of mutual aid based on their experience, select the right person to seek help from among social relationships, and finally decide with whom to engage in mutual aid by combining situational factors and psychological costs. Limited mutual aid and social mutual aid are different levels of understanding of mutual aid, and they complement each other, giving directions for understanding the social meaning of mutual aid in a holistic perspective, and changes in limited mutual aid cause changes in social mutual aid.

Practical social relationship is a general expression of the duality of social relationship. The duality of social relations provides a basic relational map and a basis for the measurement of markers for mutual aid, while leaving room for variation. Structure answers the question of how objective constraints affect people's cognitive judgments, and practice points out how people can make contextually appropriate expedients to reconcile the mismatch between relational structure and mutual aid, and make them fit the current situation.

Social change focuses on changes in livelihood patterns. The improvement of people's economic living conditions, the systematic integration of the national social market, the increase of inequality and heterogeneity, and the dissolution of communality are important factors in the alienation of mutual aid behavior. Under social change, on the one hand, the need for mutual aid disappears, decreases and is replaced, on the other hand, people interact less, relationships become unfamiliar, new patterns of disparity emerge, and mutual aid is alienated. In fact, the shrinkage of mutual aid behavior is the result of people's inability to balance the perceived benefits of their behavior and the rising psychological costs.