Forms of social relationships in distinct cultural settings

TL;DR

This paper explores how social relationships vary across cultures by linking relational models theory with cultural rationality theory, explaining how cultural biases influence relational implementations without excluding any models.

Contribution

It introduces a framework connecting RMT and PRT, clarifying how cultural biases shape relational models and explaining previous empirical findings.

Findings

Relational models can be implemented in ways compatible with cultural biases.

Cultural biases restrict but do not exclude relational models.

The framework clarifies expected associations between relationships and cultural contexts.

Abstract

We contribute to the understanding of social relationships within cultural contexts by proposing a connection between a social theory, relational models theory (RMT: Fiske 1991, 1992) and a social and political one, cultural or plural rationality theory (PRT: Douglas, 1982, Thompson et al., 1990). Drawing examples from the literature of both theories, we argue that each relational model of RMT may be implemented in ways compatible with each cultural bias of PRT. A cultural bias restrains the range of congruent implementations of relational models, but does not preclude any relational model altogether. This stands in contrast to earlier reconciliation attempts between PRT and RMT. Based on hypothetical one-to-one mappings, these attempts expect each cultural setting to be significantly associated with some, but not all, relational models. The framework we develop helps explain the findings of these previous attempts and provides insights into empirical research by clarifying which associations to expect between relationships and cultural contexts. We discuss the theoretical basis of our framework, including the idea that RMT and PRT apply to different levels of analysis: RMT's relational models are tied to relationships between two actors and PRT's cultural biases to structures of social networks.