Relational models theory: A confirmatory factor analysis

Abstract Descriptive taxonomies of social relationships typically propose independent, bipolar dimensions, such as warmth/hostility, equality/inequality, and formality/informality. Relational models theory (Fiske, 1991), in contrast, proposes four potentially correlated, unipolar relational models. Features of the four models were subjected to confirmatory factor analyses that tested the unipolarity and non‐independence assumptions on a large sample of social relationships. Findings supported the hypothesis that the models correspond to coherent, correlated, and unipolar factors.