Incorporate the context (i.e., cultural, social, economic, and relational) within which careers are created. Whereas con- textual factors were long considered moderating influences in the career development and counseling process, contempo- rary theory, research, and practice have brought these issues. Relational-cultural theory (RCT; Miller, 1976) is a con- temporary psychodynamic framework for understanding human development based on the assumption that individu. Relational-Cultural Theory RCT was created by Jean Baker Miller upon the publication of her renown book, Toward a New Psychology of Women (1976). RCT was founded upon the belief that traditional models of human development did not account for the relational experiences of women and many minority cultural groups (Comstock et al., 2008; Jordan.
Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) has grown from the early work of Jean Baker Miller, M.D., who wrote the best-selling book Toward a New Psychology of Women. Since the first edition was published in 1976, the book has sold over 200,000 copies, has been translated into 20 languages, and published in 12 countries. In her work, Dr. Miller explored the importance of dynamics of dominance and subordination in human relationships and began to reframe the psychology of women as a psychology centered in relationships.
RCT was then further developed collaboratively when Jean Baker Miller, M.D., Judith V. Jordan, Ph.D., Irene Stiver, Ph.D., and Janet Surrey, Ph.D., began meeting twice a month in 1977. This group, later named the Stone Center Theory Group and then the Founding Scholars, was trying to break free from what they felt were the damaging effects for women of traditional therapy. By 1981 they were writing papers, presenting at conferences, and had found an institutional home at the Stone Center at Wellesley College where Jean Baker Miller served as the first director; they were literally coming into voice.
The group continued to question the usefulness of psychology and therapeutic practices that elevate and celebrate the notion of a hyper-individuated separate self. The dominant (white, male, middle-class, heterosexual) culture valorizes power over others, overemphasizing internal traits, intrapsychic conflict, and striving for independence and success accomplished through competitive achievement, particularly in the culture of the 21st-century United States. To the extent that relationships are emphasized, they are viewed as primarily utilitarian and as aids to the achievement to separate self. They underemphasize the importance of connection, growth-fostering relationship, and community, and often position a person’s need for interconnectedness as a sign of “weakness.”
As the work progressed, it brought phenomenological focus to the experience of women whose voices had been historically marginalized from the mainstream writing about women’s development. The inclusion of these voices was intended to challenge our assumptions of a power myth norm that would define “woman” as a white, economically privileged, able-bodied, and heterosexual female. Unchallenged, this norm becomes a standard against which all women’s experience is interpreted and evaluated. Therefore, the extent to which an individual woman conforms to this norm becomes almost by default the measure by which she is deemed worthy of notice or fit for connection. The scholars began to understand the importance of connection as it also sought to move the model away from the biases of white, middle-class heterosexual experience, from woman’s voice to women’s voices: understanding the essentiality of connection across difference. The effects of disconnection at a societal level, and the ways that power differentials, forces of stratification, privilege, and marginalization can disconnect and disempower individuals and groups of people is paramount to understanding well-being on both an individual and societal level. The exercise of power over others (dominance), unilateral, influence, and/or coercive control is a prime deterrent to mutuality.
Mutuality involves profound mutual respect and mutual openness to change and responsiveness. It does not mean equality. As Jean Baker Miller once said, “In order for one person to grow in relationship, both people must grow.” This involves intersubjective, cognitive-emotional change; there is a certain, although different, vulnerability for both participants. Although we ultimately believe safety lies in building good, growth-fostering relationships and not in establishing separation from and power over others, building authentic connection is predicated on tolerating uncertainty, complexity, and the inevitable vulnerability involved in real change. It is far from easy or being perpetually “nice.”
A critical step in the evolution of the model was recognizing the significance of cultural context to human development and the impact of culture on daily life. This awareness follows from increased acknowledgment that relationships do not exist as atomized units—separate and distinct from the larger culture. Indeed, relationships may both represent and reproduce the culture in which they are embedded. Accordingly, theories about human development must answer the question: What purpose and whose interests does the theory serve? The history of psychological theory is replete with evidence of complicity with cultural arrangements and power practices that divide people into groups of dominants and subordinates. One example of this complicity was the proliferation of psychiatric diagnoses in the 19th century ascribing certain “personality traits” to African slaves that supposedly made them susceptible to “rascality, episodes of running away and disregard for owner’s property” (Thomas & Sillen, 1972).
More recently, feminist theorists (Broverman, Broverman, Clarkson, Rosenkranz, & Vogel, 1970; Gilligan, 1982; Jordan et al., 1991; Miller, 1976, 1987; Miller & Stiver, 1997) have noted how the traditional theories of psychological maturity tended to overpathologize women as inherently needy, overly emotional, and dependent. Rarely was there any attention to the social structures and power arrangements that circumscribed the relational roles designated for women in a gender-stratified culture. When “personality traits” are attributed to a subordinate group and pathologized, psychological theories help to justify and preserve the culture’s power stratifications. In sum, the shift from self-in-relation to RCT signifies an intentional focus on the social implications of theory development.
Through exploring connection and disconnection at both the individual and social levels, we begin to understand how the political becomes psychological/personal and vice versa. Connections form or fail to form within a web of other social and cultural relationships. As we more deeply understood the central role of culture and power differentials on relationships, we felt the model’s name needed to signal this.
To place culture, alongside connection, at the center of the theory is to break a critical silence. First, it acknowledges that social and political values inform theories of human psychology, including those that valorize separation and autonomy. Relational-Cultural Theory does not pretend to be value neutral. RCT recognizes that to feign value neutrality is to perpetuate the distortions of the stratified culture in rather predictable ways. First, theory itself becomes exempt from social scrutiny and takes on an aura of truth. Second, such hierarchical “power over” theories control how all members of the culture are defined and known. Third, it does this by tending to degrade or pathologize the experiences of marginalized people. Fourth, it tends to overvalue and privilege the perspectives of people who are culturally dominant. Miller (1976) and others have pointed out that as one gains dominance in a culture of stratified power, enabling supports and connections are rendered invisible. By placing culture at the center of the model, RCT strives to make visible the multi-layered connections that belie the myth of separation (Miller & Stiver, 1997).
In a culture that valorizes separation and autonomy, persons with cultural privilege can falsely appear more self-sufficient and so will be judged as healthier, more mature, more worthy of the privilege society affords. Those who enjoy less cultural privilege (whether by virtue or race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or economic status) will more likely be viewed as deficient and needy. They are more likely to be subject to systemic disadvantage and culture shaming. By bringing a phenomenological focus to cultural context, a more complete and accurate picture of human experience and possibility emerges. Without such a focus, the experiences of both the socially privileged and the socially disadvantaged are subject to distortion.
The illusion of separation and the mistaken belief in autonomy contribute to the denial of the basic human need to participate in the growth of others and to being open to be moved by others. And yet the power to move others, to find responsiveness, to effect change, to create movement together is a vital part of good connection. How power is defined and expressed is crucial. For instance there is the power to name, to shame, and to define another’s value or lack thereof, the power to distribute resources. If this power is expressed unilaterally, it reduces the strength and power of the other people or group of people who do not hold this power. As it is held onto and denied to others, it creates disconnection and disempowerment. Inequalities in power distribution occur in families, in therapy relationships, in work relationships. At a societal level, unequal distribution of power among groups—those largely defined as marginal by dominant center groups—is rampant and the source of pain and disconnection among the members of the marginalized people.
The complexity of connection and of relationships arises from unequal power, from working with difference, or from trying to manage conflict creatively. RCT recognizes that all relationships are punctuated by disconnections, misunderstandings, and conflict. Connecting in a real, growthful way with others is not always harmonious or comfortable; we all experience fear, anger, and shame. We move away to protect ourselves, particularly if we are not met with empathic responsiveness or if we feel we do not matter to the other person. But when we renegotiate these inevitable disconnections, the relationship is enhanced and personal feelings of well-being, creativity, and clarity increase.
The path of connection is filled with disconnections, the vulnerability of seeking reconnection, and the tension around needing to move away, possibly to hide in protective inauthenticity. But we believe there is powerful force behind the movement toward connection, a yearning for connection, a desire to contribute to others, to serve something larger than “the self.”
As we move forward in the development of RCT, we ask: How can we create a radical new language of connection and fully appreciate the fundamental contribution of relationship to human development? How can we appreciate the power of “controlling images?” Described so powerfully by Patricia Hill Collins (1990), these images are often about race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, and are imposed by the dominant culture to disempower and marginalize subordinate groups. We seek to examine how cultural stratification along multiple social identities shapes developmental experiences and relational possibilities by exploring how experiences of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and gender affect the development of authenticity and mutual empathy in relationship. In the earliest days of our work we elucidated the relational consequences of interpersonal disconnection, describing it as a primary source of human suffering.
We acknowledge the thesis that a “power over” culture is itself an agent of disconnection that, left unchallenged, diminishes the relational capacities and confidence of all its members. For example, because unilateral power breeds fear, it also diminishes the relational capacities of those who hold power over others. When the purpose of a relationship is to protect the power differential (maintain the gap between those who hold privilege and those who do not), it is highly unlikely that authentic responsiveness can unfold. Indeed, authentic engagement and openness to mutual influence may be viewed as dangerous practices.
The path of connection is filled with complexity, contradiction, and uncertainty. In the face of the unknowns and the humbling blind spots, we are dedicated to learning to being responsive. In a world that is increasingly disconnected, violent, and filled with fear, where community needs are obscured by individual greed and competition, we feel commitment to connection. And in turning to connection, we feel hope.
Broverman, I. K., Broverman, D. M., Clarkson, F. E., Rosenkranz, P. S., & Vogel, S. (1970). Sex-role stereotypes and clinical judgments of mental health. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 34(1), 1-7.
Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Jordan, J. V. (Ed.). (1997). Women’s growth in diversity: More writings from the Stone Center. New York: Guilford Press.
Jordan, J. V., Kaplan, A. G., Miller, J. B., Stiver, I. P., & Surrey, J. L. (1991). Women’s growth in connection: Writings from the Stone Center. New York: Guilford Press.
Relational Cultural Theory Ppt
Miller, J. B. (1976). Toward a new psychology of women. Boston: Beacon Press.
Miller, J. B. (1987). Toward a new psychology of women (2nd ed.). Boston: Beacon Press.
Miller, J. B. & Stiver, I. P. (1997). The healing connection: How women form relationships in therapy and in life. Boston: Beacon Press.
Thomas, A. & Sillen, S. (1972). Racism and psychiatry. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Relational Models Theory Definition
The relational models theory describes the four fundamental forms of social relationships: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. People in communal sharing relationships feel that they have something essential in common, whereas outsiders are different. Participants in an authority ranking relationship see themselves as ordered in a legitimate linear hierarchy. In an equality matching relationship, people keep track of whether each separate individual is treated equally. In market pricing, people use ratios or rates, according to some standard of due proportions, such as price. People in all cultures use combinations of these four models to organize nearly all interactions, from close relationships to casual and distant ones. The relational models are innate and intrinsically motivated. But children rely on cultural prototypes and precedents to discover how to implement them in culture-specific ways.
What Is Relational Cultural Theory
Relational models theory integrates classical theories of social relations and society, and it connects natural selection, neurobiology, child development, cognition, emotion, communication, psychological disorders, norms and ideology, religion, social and political structures, and culture. The theory is supported by ethnographic and comparative cultural studies, and by psychological experiments using a variety of methods. Alan Page Fiske formulated the theory; Nick Haslam did much of the early experimental work on it and developed the theory in relation to clinical psychology and social cognition. Research using relational models theory has provided insights into political psychology, cross-cultural interaction, attitudes toward immigration, behavioral and anthropological economics, the social systems of classical Greece, sociolinguistics, business management, group and family processes, moral judgment, social motives and emotions, gifts and other exchanges, time perspectives, tobacco use, personality disorders, autism, schizophrenia, and vulnerability to other psychological disorders.
Four Relational Models in Relational Models Theory
Communal Sharing
In communal sharing, everyone in a group or dyad is all the same with respect to whatever they are doing: They all share some food, or living space, or responsibility for some work. If one has a problem, it concerns them all. Outsiders treat them as collectively responsible for what they do, punishing any or all of them indiscriminately. Communal relationships involve a sense of oneness and identity, which can be as strong as the connection between mother and child or romantic lovers, or as weak as national or ethic identity. The most intense communal sharing relationships are based on participants’ feeling that their bodies are essentially the same or connected because they are linked by birth, blood, appearance, and body marking or modification such as a form of circumcision or excision. Synchronous rhythmic movement can also connect people in this way, for example, in military drill or ritual dance. Sharing food, drink, or substances such as tobacco also underlies communal relationships. So does physical contact, such as caressing, cuddling, kissing, or sleeping close. By making their bodies alike or connected, people create communal relationships, and at the same time communicate the existence and intensity of their relationship. People also think of themselves as the same; their cognitive and emotional representation of the relationship corresponds to the ways they express it. Infants intuitively respond to these expressions of communal sharing, which is how they connect and identify with their families and caretakers.
Authority Ranking
In authority ranking, people are linearly ordered in a proper hierarchy of privileges and responsibilities. Superiors are entitled to deferential respect, but have pastoral responsibility to represent, stand up for, and protect subordinates. In an authority ranking relationship, people think of their superiors as above, greater than, in front of, having more power or force than, and preceding them. Subordinates are perceived as below, lesser than, following behind, weaker than, and coming after. This cognitive representation of social ranking corresponds to the social displays of rank that people use to communicate their relative positions, for example, when a person bows to superiors or waits for them to start eating first. In many languages, people respectfully address or refer to superiors using plural forms and use singular forms when speaking to subordinates (for example, French vous vs. tu). Children intuitively recognize the meaning of being bigger or higher, being in front, or going first.
Equality Matching
Equality matching is the basis of turn-taking, equal rights, even sharing, voting, decision by coin flip or lottery, and balanced reciprocity whereby people return the same kind of thing they received. This is the universal structure of games and sports, where opponents have equal numbers of players or pieces, employ a fair way to decide who chooses first, play on a symmetrical field or board, take turns, have equal time to play, and often use dice or other devices that add uncertain but equal chances. In an equality matching relationship, the participants may be even or uneven at any given point, but when they are uneven, they know how to even things up again—for example, by taking the next turn. In equality matching, people use concrete matching operations to demonstrate equality, such as starting a race side by side, flipping a coin, or lining up the opposing teams one-to-one. These concrete operations are procedural demonstrations of equality: The actions show that the sides are manifestly equal. Casting ballots is an operational definition of equality in political choice; setting up the two corresponding sets of chess pieces and punching the clock at the end of each move are operational definitions of a fair game. Adhering to these rules makes the game a demonstrably fair and proper game. For children and adults, equality matching is intrinsically important; people get very upset when they have less than their peers.
Market Pricing
Market pricing is a relationship governed by ratios, rates, or proportions. The most obvious examples are prices, wages, rents, taxes, tithes, and interest. But market pricing is also the basis for formal and informal cost-benefit analyses in which people make decisions on the basis of what they are investing in proportion to the returns they can expect to get out. Market pricing always involves some universal standard by which the values of everything in the relationship can be compared. This need not be money; utilitarianism is the moral philosophy based on giving the greatest good to the greatest number, where all good and evil is compared in a metric of utility. Similarly, grades and grade point averages are the product of ratio-based calculations that combine all aspects of academic performance in a single score. People also measure social ratios in terms of time or effort. Market pricing trans-actions rely on abstract conventional symbols, such as numbers or linguistic descriptions of the features of an item or the terms of a contract. The arbitrary symbols in a used car ad, for example, are totally unintelligible to anyone unfamiliar with the arbitrary conventions of the specific market system: “2000 Ford Mustang GT 39M, conv, auto, lthr, alrm, Alpine snd syst, BBK air intake, Flowmasters, 18 X 10 Saleen whls, new pnt, body kit & more, slvg, pp, $9,500.” The most abstract conventional symbols are prices, which represent the ratios of exchange of all valued features of all commodities in a market system.
Four Ways of Organizing Any Interaction
These four relational models are the components for all kinds of coordinated interactions and social institutions. For example, moral evaluations and sentiments can be based on the communal sense that everyone in the group feels the suffering of everyone else: one for all and all for one. Another form of morality is obedience to superiors such as elders, religious leaders, or gods; conversely, superiors have pastoral responsibilities to protect their flocks. Another moral framework is equality: equal rights, equal opportunities, equal shares, or equal outcomes. Finally, there is justice as proportionality: giving each person what he or she deserves, either punishment in proportion to the crime or reward in proportion to merit. However, the four relational models also structure aggressive, hostile, and violent interactions. When people try to “purify” a group or nation to rid it of others whom they view as inherently different, communal sharing may result in ethnic cleansing and genocide. Acting in an authority ranking system, rulers punish dissidents, kill rebels and traitors, and make war to extend their dominions. Feuding and retaliation typically take the equality matching form of “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound” vengeance. And the planning of modern warfare is often based on kill ratios and other rational cost-benefit calculations. The relational models also organize the social meanings of material things. Studies show that the economic value that people place on objects depends on the social relationships that the objects signify. Indeed, objects such as a wedding ring may have virtually infinite economic value—people refuse to sell them. Cultural and historical research shows that land can be held communally, shared by all: a village commons or a park. Land can be a feudal dominion, such that all who reside on it are subjects of the king and the lord of the manor. People may be entitled to equal plots of land, as represented by homesteading laws, or land can also be what makes people equal, as when owning land is a requirement for voting. Or land can be a commodity that people invest in for the rent or appreciation in market value. In virtually every domain of social life in every culture, people use the four relational models to generate their own actions, to understand others’ actions, to evaluate or sanction their own and others’ actions, and to coordinate joint activities.
Complex, long-term social relationships and institutions are composed of combinations of discrete relational models. For example, a dean has an authority ranking relationship with a professor, who in turn has an authority ranking relationship with students. But the dean should treat professors equitably, and professors should give each student the same opportunities and apply the same standards to all, according to equality matching. Similarly, within each department, faculty may have equal teaching loads. At the same time, students pay tuition and buy textbooks, and professors receive a salary. Yet professors and students have communal access to the library and the Internet services that the university provides; deans, professors, and students also have a shared identification with the university and its teams.
Research on Relational Models Theory
Ample and diverse evidence supports relational models theory, including ethnographic participant observation, ethnologic comparison across cultures, research on naturally occurring social cognition in everyday life, and experimental studies using rating scales and artificial stimuli. One set of studies analyzed social errors when people called someone by the wrong name, directed an action at the wrong person, or mis-remembered with whom they had interacted. In five cultures, when people make these types of errors, they typically substitute another person with whom they have the same type of relationship. So, for example, I may call Susan, Gwen, because I have communal sharing relationships with each of them. Other studies have shown that people intuitively categorize their own relationships into groups roughly corresponding to the four relational models, and judge any two of their relationships to be most similar when the relationships are organized by the same relational model.
People interacting with each other may use different models without realizing it. When this happens, they are likely to get frustrated or disappointed, and to feel that the others are doing something wrong. For example, if Tom assumes that he and Alesha are doing the dishes in a communal framework, he expects them both to wash dishes whenever they can. But suppose Alesha implicitly assumes that dish washing should be based on equality matching. When Tom is busy and Alesha is not, he will be angry if Alesha fails to do the dishes, but if she sees it as his turn, she’ll be angry that he fails to do them. Studies of families, research groups, corporations, and inter-ethnic relations show that mismatching of relational models produces distress and recriminations: Everyone perceives themselves to be acting properly in accord with the relational model they are applying, whereas others are transgressing that model. Research also indicates that some people persistently try to apply relational models in ways that are inconsistent with prevalent cultural expectations; this leads to chronic problems associated with personality disorders and vulnerability to other psychological disorders.
References:
- Fiske, A. P. (1991). Structures of social life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Free Press.
- Fiske, A. P., & Haslam, N. (2005). The four basic social bonds: Structures for coordinating interaction. In M. Baldwin (Ed.), Interpersonal cognition (pp. 267-298). New York: Guilford Press.
- Fiske, A. P., Haslam, N., & Fiske, S. (1991). Confusing one person with another: What errors reveal about the elementary forms of social relations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 656-674.
- Haslam, N. (Ed.). (2004). Relational models theory: A contemporary overview. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
- Relational Models Theory. Retrieved July 12, 2015, from http://www.rmt.ucla.edu/.