| This dissertation explores the effect of elementary relational preferences on social psychological and intergroup phenomena. It also explores the potential representational formats of relational primitives and how they combine. To do so, I draw on Relational Models Theory - arguing that, universally, people use just four elementary relational building blocks to coordinate their social interaction (Fiske, 1991, 2004) - and on Social Dominance Theory - arguing that relational motivations to maintain versus attenuate hierarchy between groups undergird a vast variety of intergroup phenomena (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999; Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006). Integrating these perspectives, I first address how preferences for different implementations of one relational primitive, as well as for different combinations of the same two relational primitives, each dissociate in their effects on social psychological phenomena. Next, I explore how relational primitives may be represented image-schematically, providing a new iconic measure of communal sharing, social hierarchy, and equality matching, the Circles In Relational Configuration Arrays (CIRCA). I use to this measure to test whether mappings from specific spatial to specific social relations are maintained under composition, and across age and culture. Finally, I explore the early emergence of these mappings in development, testing whether preverbal infants from 10 months of age map relative to size to social dominance. |
