Interpersonal Conflict and Relational Models Theory: A Structural Approach to Injustice

Two experiments analyzed social conflicts based on A. P. Fiske's (1991, 1992) four relational models: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. Because each model has a distinct logical structure, it was hypothesized that social conflicts in which participants used incommensurate models would lead to more extreme reactions than would conflicts in which both participants used the same model. Participants in both experiments read 16 interpersonal scenarios in which an expectation based on one of the four models was contradicted by a negative outcome based on one of the four models. In neither experiment was the incommensurability hypothesis supported, although exploratory analyses indicated significant effects of communal sharing and equality matching.

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