Social Relations Theory (Fiske)

Synonyms

Moral relationships; Social structure

Definition

A set of psychological models centering on social relationships.

Introduction

Much of social psychology examines human behavior as a product between the individual and the situation. This focus led to many distinct findings that some argue were poorly explained (see Fiske 1991). With no overarching theory to guide them, most studies were presented as individual findings, unconnected to other findings within social psychology. To remedy this, some social psychologists had proposed unified theories of social psychology. However, these theories assumed humans thought of other humans as if they were inanimate objects (Fiske 1991). To counter this, Fiske (1992) proposed a unified theory of social relations that could help explain many findings in social psychology. This theory presented four psychological models that focus on human social relations: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing.

Communal...