Forms of social relationships in distinct cultural settings

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.