Relational models theory (RMT) is a theory of

interpersonal relationships The concept of interpersonal relationship involves social associations, connections, or affiliations between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships vary in their degree of intimacy or self-disclosure, but also in their duration, in t ...

, authored by anthropologist Alan Fiske and initially developed from his fieldwork in

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...

. RMT proposes that all human interactions can be described in terms of just four "relational models", or elementary forms of human relations: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching and market pricing (to these are added the limiting cases of asocial and null interactions, whereby people do not coordinate with reference to any shared principle). RMT influenced Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations theory and Steven Pinker's theory of indirect speech.

The theory

First proposed in Fiske's doctoral dissertation in 1985, relational models theory proposes four relational models which are each argued to be innate, intrinsically motivated, and culturally universal (though with culture-specific implementations) ways of cooperating and coordinating social interactions.

The four relational models

The four relational models are as follows: * Communal sharing (CS) relationships are the most basic form of relationship where some bounded group of people are conceived as equivalent, undifferentiated and interchangeable such that distinct individual identities are disregarded and commonalities are emphasized, with intimate and

kinship In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says th ...

relations being prototypical examples of CS relationship. Common indicators of CS relationships include body markings or modifications, synchronous movement,

rituals A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

, sharing of food, or physical intimacy. * Authority ranking (AR) relationships describe asymmetric relationships where people are linearly ordered along some hierarchical social dimension. The primary feature of an AR relationship is whether a person ranks above or below each other person. Those higher in rank hold greater authority, prestige and privileges, while subordinates are entitled to guidance and protection. Military ranks are a prototypical example of an AR relationship. * Equality matching (EM) relationships are those characterized by various forms of one-for-one correspondence, such as turn taking, in-kind

reciprocity Reciprocity may refer to: Law and trade * Reciprocity (Canadian politics), free trade with the United States of America ** Reciprocal trade agreement, entered into in order to reduce (or eliminate) tariffs, quotas and other trade restrictions on ...

, tit-for-tat retaliation, or eye-for-an-eye revenge. Parties in EM relationships are primarily concerned with ensuring the relationship is in a balanced state. Non-intimate acquaintances are a prototypical example. * Market pricing (MP) relationships revolve around a model of proportionality where people attend to ratios and rates and relevant features are typically reduced to a single value or utility metric that allows the comparison (e.g., the price of a sale). Monetary transactions are a prototypical example of MP relationships.

Meta-relational models

The four elementary relationships can be combined to form more complex configurations of relationships called meta-relational models. Meta-relational models typically take the form of ''entailments'' or ''prohibitions'', which imply certain obligations, behaviors or relationships between multiple dyads within a particular configuration (e.g., within a

triad Triad or triade may refer to: * a group of three Businesses and organisations * Triad (American fraternities), certain historic groupings of seminal college fraternities in North America * Triad (organized crime), a Chinese transnational orga ...

with members A, B and C, A being in a CS relationship with B prohibits B from being in a CS relationship with A's enemy, C). Examples of meta-relational models include the

compadrazgo The compadre (, , , literally "co-father" or "co-parent") relationship between the parents and godparents of a child is an important bond that originates when a child is baptised in Iberian, Latin American, Filipino Christian and Indian Christi ...

relationship, describing the entailment of relationships between the parents and godparents of a child, and the

incest taboo An incest taboo is any cultural rule or norm that prohibits sexual relations between certain members of the same family, mainly between individuals related by blood. All human cultures have norms that exclude certain close relatives from ...

, describing the prohibition of relationships among certain members of the same family.

Relational models as an explanation of interpersonal conflict

According to RMT, mis-matching of relational models is a common cause of interpersonal conflict, given that different relational models will often imply different behaviors in the same situation. Taking two housemates sharing dishwashing as a simple example, Fiske suggests that if housemate A assumes dishwashing is governed by a CS framework and housemate B assumes an EM framework, A will expect both of them to wash dishes whenever they can, and B will expect them to take turns. If A is busy and B is not, A will expect B to wash the dishes, but if B washed the dishes last, they'll assume it's A's turn, and conflict will ensue because of A and B's mis-matched relational models.

Correspondence between relational models and Stevens's levels of measurement

Fiske proposed that the four discrete types of relationships correspond to Stevens's four

levels of measurement Level of measurement or scale of measure is a classification that describes the nature of information within the values assigned to variables. Psychologist Stanley Smith Stevens developed the best-known classification with four levels, or scal ...

. CS relationships resemble the categorical (nominal) scales of measurement in that all members of the relationship are equivalent. AR resembles an ordinal scale given that members of the relationship are placed in a linear ordering. EM relationships resemble interval measurement given that they are kept in balance by addition and subtraction. Finally, MP relationships resemble a ratio scale (whose origin corresponds, for example, to a price of zero) given that they involve proportions, multiplication and division and the distributive law.

Influence

The two main, original publications on relational models theory have received over 5000 citations combined.

In moral psychology

Relational models theory has had wide-ranging influence throughout the field of

moral psychology Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. Historically, the term "moral psychology" was used relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development. Moral psychology eventually came to refer more broadly to v ...

. This influence includes an extension of the original theory to explain moral judgments in the context of interpersonal relationships in the form of relationship regulation theory, which describes the way in which people will judge and react to similar actions differently, depending on the relational context in which the act occurs. Relational models theory has also been used to explain interpersonal

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...

in the form of virtuous violence theory, describing the moral motivations behind phenomena such as

honor killing An honor killing (American English), honour killing (Commonwealth English), or shame killing is the murder of an individual, either an outsider or a member of a family, by someone seeking to protect what they see as the dignity and honor of ...

and blood feuds. The theory has also been used as a building block of one of the more prominent theories in moral psychology,

moral foundations theory Moral foundations theory is a social psychological theory intended to explain the origins of and variation in human moral reasoning on the basis of innate, modular foundations. It was first proposed by the psychologists Jonathan Haidt, Craig Jose ...

, and to provide insights into phenomena such as moral emotions, trust and

ethical leadership Ethical leadership is leadership that is directed by respect for ethical beliefs and values and for the dignity and rights of others. It is thus related to concepts such as trust, honesty, consideration, charisma, and fairness. Ethics is conce ...

In other areas

RMT has been influential in the development of Steven Pinker's theory of

indirect speech In linguistics, indirect speech (also reported speech or indirect discourse) is a grammatical mechanism for reporting the content of another utterance without directly quoting it. For example, the English sentence ''Jill said she was coming'' ...

, and folk-psychological studies of groups. Additionally, RMT has also been used to help explain the positive social emotion of "Kama Muta", typically described as the experience of "being moved" (also related to the emotion

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

, and the concept of

empathic concern Empathic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by, and congruent with the perceived welfare of, someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like. Emp ...

). According to this view, "Kama Muta" is triggered by witnessing the sudden intensification of a communal sharing relationship.

References

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External links

''Alan Page Fiske: Overview of Relational Models Theory''
A lecture by Alan Fiske in 2015.
''Relational Models Theory''
An overview and bibliography of Relational Models Theory.
as a Window into Human Nature''
A video explaining Steven Pinker's theory of indirect speech, drawing on Relational Models Theory. Psychological theories Moral psychology Interpersonal relationships Anthropology