Relational mobility is asociological variable that represents how much freedom individuals have to choose which persons to have relationships with, including friendships, working relationships, and romantic partnerships in a given society. Societies with low relational mobility have less flexibleinterpersonal networks. People form relationships based on circumstance rather than active choice. In these societies, relationships are more stable and guaranteed, while there are fewer opportunities to leave unsatisfying relationships and find new ones.Group memberships tend to be fixed, and individuals have less freedom to select or change these relationships even if they wished to.
In contrast, societies with high relational mobility give people choice and freedom to select or leave interpersonal relationships based on their personal preferences. Such relationships are based on mutual agreement and are not guaranteed to last.Individuals have many opportunities to meet new people and to choose whom they interact with or which groups they belong to in such societies.[1][2]
Relational mobility is conceived as asocioecological factor, which means that it depends on the social and natural environment. The theory of relational mobility has attracted increased interest since the early 2000's because it has been found to explain importantcross-cultural differences in people's behavior and way of thinking.[3]
The relational mobility scale is asociometric scale used for measuring relational mobility inpopulation surveys. This scale is based on a series of questions asking people not about their own situation, but the situation of people around them such as friendship groups, hobby groups, sports teams, and companies. The questions are probing to what degree these people are able to choose the people whom they interact with in their daily life, according to their own preferences.[1]
Relational mobility is low in cultures withsubsistence styles that put people in tight relationships with reciprocal duties such asfarming that requires coordination of labor. The growing ofpaddy rice, in particular, requires tight coordination of labor andirrigation. The lowest level of relational mobility is found inEast Asian countries where rice farming is a prevailing means of subsistence. A comparative study has found significant differences in ways of thinking between areas inChina dominated by rice farming and areas dominated bywheat farming. This difference could not be explained well by other theories.[4]
On the opposite side of the spectrum isnomadic herding. Herders move frequently, meaning that they have fewer stable, long-term relationships and more opportunities to form and break relationships. Studies have shown that herding cultures emphasize more individualdecision making while nearby farming and fishing cultures emphasize harmonious social interdependence andholistic thinking.[5]
A large cross-cultural study has found that relational mobility is lowest in East Asian countries where rice farming is common. The relational mobility is higher in industrialized European countries andEnglish-speaking countries, while it is highest inSouth American countries. This study found a strong correlation between relational mobility and subsistence style, and a somewhat weaker correlation with environmental threats that requiregroup cohesion and cooperation.[1]
People in cultures with low relational mobility are careful to avoid conflicts and disagreements in order to maintainharmony in the social groups that they cannot escape. They are careful not to offend others in order to avoid a badreputation. Thus, the cultural preference forconformity, which is common in East Asian cultures, is actually a strategy to avoid bad reputation andsocial exclusion.[6] People in these cultures are more sensitive tosocial rejection[7] and more likely to feelashamed towards their friends (but not towards strangers) in order to mitigate information that may damage their reputation.[8]
The degree of relational mobility is influencing people's way of thinking. A low relational mobility is leading to cognitive tendencies that theorists call holistic thinking, while high relational mobility is associated with analytic thinking. This difference insocial cognition is defined as a difference in how peopleattribute their own and others’ behavior to either internal causes (the actors’dispositions) or external causes (situational factors). Individuals’ need to coordinate their actions and avoid conflict makessalient the influence of external forces, including powerful others in the environment, on their own situation. An externallocus of control is typical of cultures with low relational mobility. People pay more attention to situational factors and to chance,fate, andluck than to individual dispositions in these cultures. In contrast, high relational mobility is associated with an internal locus of control with more focus on the individual and less focus on thesocial environment.[9]
Social relationships and group memberships are more easily formed and terminated in cultures with high relational mobility. Interpersonal connections are here based on mutual convenience and thus less stable and reliable.[9] Less importance is placed onjob security, while alsodivorce is more common and more accepted.[1] People invest more effort in attracting, forming, and maintaining social bonds where relationships cannot be taken for granted. People exhibit moreself-enhancement behavior and higherself-esteem here in order to advertise their value as companions and to facilitate the forming of social bonds.[10] People are more prone to develop personaluniqueness in high relational mobility societies in order to increase their value in themarket-like competition for social relationships.Idiosyncratic behavior is less common in low relational mobility societies where it may lead toostracism.[11]
People tend to invest more in maintaining friendships as well as romantic partnerships where relational mobility is high, because the stability of the bond cannot be taken for granted. This bonding behavior includes helping,intimacy,passion, andgift-giving.[12][13][14] People evendisclose personal information to friends in order to show their commitment to the relationship.[15]
There are different ways of dealing with uncertainty about the quality of a potential partner or collaborator. In low relational mobility societies such asJapan, firms often maintain long-term relations with loyalpartners even if better deals with new partners could be obtained.Business strategies tend to be different in societies with higher relational mobility, such asNorth America, where new relationships are formed based ontrust. There is higherrisk in new business relationships, but also more to gain by finding a potentially better business partner than one already has.[16] In general, the level of interpersonal trust has been found to be higher in societies with high relational mobility, not only in business relations, but also in generalinterpersonal relations and onsocial media.[1][17]
Researchers have found evidence that cultures with higher relational mobility had higher rates of COVID-19 infections and death per capita.[18][19] The theory is that cultures with higher relational mobility have more interactions in broad social networks and with new people, and these interactions give the virus more opportunities to spread. Cultural differences in relational mobility predicted more infections and death, even controlling for differences in economic development, international trade, population density, the prevalence of COVID-19 testing, and other variables.[18] There is some evidence that relational mobility was particularly important in the first few months of the pandemic, but it became less important over time, perhaps because cultures shut down public venues, and people changed their socialization patterns.[20]
However, there seem to be exceptions to this pattern. For example, cultures with low relational mobility may have stronger expectations of seeing family and friends for important holidays. This could explain why a study in China found that rice-farming areas had rates of COVID-19 infections that were three times higher than wheat-farming areas at the beginning of the outbreak in 2020, which coincided with Chinese New Year.[21] People in rice-farming areas of China reported visiting more family and friends than people in wheat-farming areas of China for Chinese New Year. In contrast, people in cultures of high relational mobility may give people more flexibility to choose whether or not to see people for holidays.
The theory of relational mobility has analogies in themating behavior,cooperation behavior, and inter-speciessymbiosis among animals. It has been observed that such behavior is adjusted to the stability of the relationships, the degree of competition on the relationship "market", and the possibilities for cheating among a variety of species, including birds and insects.[1][22]