  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.
