Representing Relationships: Modes of Cognition and Connection

by Alan Page Fiske

Overview

The four fundamental forms of sociality structure our relationships. By comparing hundreds of cultures across more than 5,000 years, this book builds on relational models theory to reveal how each of the four basic types of relationship is conceived in their own distinctive cognitive medium. The text demonstrates how people use their food and bodies to foster affiliation, spatial dimensions to form hierarchy, concrete operations of one-to-one matching to create equality, and employ arbitrary, conventional symbols for proportion-based relationships. Originating from the author's ethnographic fieldwork in a West African village, this innovative social theory integrates findings from social, cognitive, and developmental psychology, linguistics and semiotics, anthropology, archeology, art history, religious studies, and ancient texts. The chapters offer compelling insights into readers' everyday social relations by showing what humans think their social relationships actually are.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108943895
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/30/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	16 MB
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About the Author

Alan Page Fiske is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and known for creating the Relational Models Theory. His notable publications include Structures of Social Life (1991), Virtuous Violence (Cambridge, 2014, with Tage Shakti Rai), and Kama Muta: Discovering the Connecting Emotion (2020).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Part I. Modes of Minding Social Action: Bodily Indices of Unity, Dimensional Icons of Rank, Concrete Operations of Equality, Arbitrary Symbols of Proportions: 1. Meaning to relate; 2. The Moosé of Burkina Faso; 3. The modalities of the four conformation system; Part II. Consubstantial Assimilation: The Conformation System of Communal Sharing: 4. Indexically conforming communal sharing by substance-sharing; 5. Shared surfaces, motion, and fear; Part III. Iconic Dimensions and Magnitudes: The Conformation System of Authority Ranking: 6. Your highness; 7. Architectural mass, volume, surface area, and elevation; 8. In front, more numerous, earlier, and greater force; 9. Luminosity and loudness; 10. The dimensions and magnitudes that conform authority ranking; 11. Iconic conformations in language; 12. Experimental research on western adults' and infants' cognitive representations of rank; 13. The biology of iconic dimensions and magnitudes; Part IV. Concrete Operations that Make Persons Even: The Conformation System of Equality Matching: 14. Constituting equality matching; 15. Symbolic conformation of market pricing; 16. Contemplations; References.

Editorial Reviews

'Alan Fiske is among the grandest scholars in the social sciences and this book is the magnificent summation of his life's work. He shows you the four basic models of human relationships that are the keys to understanding how people work together to create almost everything: families, friendships, teams, companies, governments … and misunderstandings. This book will give you something akin to X-ray vision into social life, institutions, customs, and the drama of human affairs.' Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, New York University, USA, and author of The Anxious Generation

'There is no richer or more complete account of the foundations of human social life. A masterful synthesis of the sciences of mind, culture, evolution, and development, the book culminates decades of work by one of our most original and wide-ranging theorists. Required reading for social scientists of all stripes.' Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology, University of Melbourne, Australia

'For many years, this theory has been the prism through which I study the social world. With it, you understand social relations, their embodiments, and how those are different, and yet the same, across cultures. If an alien ever asks you for a guide to understanding sociality, hand them this book.' Thomas Schubert, Professor of Social Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway

From the Publisher