Marriage counselors are famous for admonishing couples that responsibility for everything that happens in their marriage is shared 50–50 between them. Although many an unhappy spouse has challenged the justice of this even-handed formulation, it captures an important truth about relationships: They are never reducible to individual experience. Every action taken within a relationship is also a reaction, every response a stimulus to a response in return.
Inequality is a relationship, one that links haves with have-nots. The participants in this type of relationship are members of paired social categories: men and women, whites and blacks, Christians and Muslims, gays and straights (Tilly Reference Tilly1998). Their relationships share much in common with the interpersonal relationships with which psychologists are more familiar: For example, the relationships take different forms, depending on the participants. They exist in time and change in response to both internal and external events. They are situated in a broader context, and this context also changes over time. Given these many similarities, one might expect relational models to play a major role in the study of categorical inequalities.
Dixon et al. offer several strong arguments for why they should. The authors highlight the complex, ambivalent attitudes that members of unequal categories have toward each other and analyze those attitudes in terms of the power and dependency relations between them. Dixon et al. consider the unintended, and largely overlooked, effects that a prejudice-reduction intervention aimed at the advantaged member of the relationship has on the disadvantaged member, and explicitly advocate a focus on how interventions aimed to improve one intergroup relationship affect the broader network of relationships between groups within a society. All of these contributions are consistent with a relational approach.
However, when it comes to the question of how to produce social change, Dixon et al. abandon their relational emphasis and instead seek to determine who is right and who is wrong. They propose two models: the prejudice reduction model, in which the advantaged category provides the impetus for social change, and the collective action model, in which the disadvantaged category provides the impetus for social change. They argue, on the basis of three case studies, that the weight of the historical evidence favors the superiority of the collective action model over the prejudice reduction model. Then, to reconcile the two models, they argue for the identification of moderating variables that determine the conditions under which each is effective. Lost, in this analysis, is their earlier insight that inequality is fundamentally a relationship between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Both must act, in synchrony, to change the relationship between them.
What might a relational theory of social change look like? The development of such a theory is beyond the scope of this brief commentary, but we can sketch some of the features it would need to include (Murray & Holmes Reference Murray and Holmes2011).
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1.
A psychological and behavioral analysis of the unequal relationship. To change the relationship between unequal groups in society, one needs to have an ongoing understanding of how individuals on both sides of the advantage divide experience the relationship. Just as researchers of close relationships explore the motives partners bring to their relationship and how they behave in interactions, respond to each other's needs, and build trust and intimacy, so inequality researchers should explore these aspects of unequal relationships. For example, recent research has shed considerable light on how blacks and whites in the United States relate to each other, the goals and concerns they bring to their interactions, the kinds of behaviors they find reassuring or stressful in an interaction partner, and the obstacles they face to the development of close bonds (e.g., Shelton & Richeson Reference Shelton and Richeson2006).
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2.
A structural analysis of the unequal relationship. Achieving social change also requires an understanding of the structure of inequality. Just as close-relationship researchers probe partners' backgrounds, roles, and resources to determine the structural features of their relationship, so inequality researchers must examine how resources are unequally distributed across a category pair and the processes sustaining that asymmetry. For example, consider the structural features of racial and gender inequalities. Racial inequalities tend to coincide with contextual boundaries: Blacks occupy less advantaged contexts (e.g., neighborhoods, schools, occupations) than do whites. Gender inequalities, by contrast, crosscut these boundaries; women and men occupy the same contexts, but are unequal within them. These structural features have implications for the psychology of change. An intervention to reduce racial inequality must overcome the inclination of both blacks and whites to self-segregate, whereas an intervention to reduce gender inequality must overcome the widespread belief that it is natural and even desirable (Tilly Reference Tilly1998).
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3.
A temporal dimension. Relationships, including relationships of inequality, develop and change over time. This temporal dynamic is of interest in its own right and is also important for understanding how relationship partners evaluate their current and future circumstances. These evaluations are often based more heavily on the trajectory of outcomes (i.e., whether they are improving or declining), than on their absolute value. For example, the same pay gap may be evaluated negatively if it used to be smaller, positively if it used to be bigger, or negatively if it used be bigger but ought to be shrinking more quickly (Crosby Reference Crosby1976; Eibach & Keegan Reference Eibach and Keegan2006).
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4.
Incorporation of the broader societal context. Relationships do not exist in a vacuum; they are profoundly influenced by the broader societal context they inhabit. Just as a close relationship depends on its familial, social, and cultural environment, so too does the relationship between unequal categories depend on its broader societal and political context. Indeed, lasting change in these relationships is much more likely to come from an exogenous source (e.g., political leadership, legal actions, organizational policies) than from an endogenous source (e.g., changing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of the relating parties). Hence, any theory of social change needs to be able to account for how unequal relationships react to change, as well as how they generate it.
Marriage counselors are famous for admonishing couples that responsibility for everything that happens in their marriage is shared 50–50 between them. Although many an unhappy spouse has challenged the justice of this even-handed formulation, it captures an important truth about relationships: They are never reducible to individual experience. Every action taken within a relationship is also a reaction, every response a stimulus to a response in return.
Inequality is a relationship, one that links haves with have-nots. The participants in this type of relationship are members of paired social categories: men and women, whites and blacks, Christians and Muslims, gays and straights (Tilly Reference Tilly1998). Their relationships share much in common with the interpersonal relationships with which psychologists are more familiar: For example, the relationships take different forms, depending on the participants. They exist in time and change in response to both internal and external events. They are situated in a broader context, and this context also changes over time. Given these many similarities, one might expect relational models to play a major role in the study of categorical inequalities.
Dixon et al. offer several strong arguments for why they should. The authors highlight the complex, ambivalent attitudes that members of unequal categories have toward each other and analyze those attitudes in terms of the power and dependency relations between them. Dixon et al. consider the unintended, and largely overlooked, effects that a prejudice-reduction intervention aimed at the advantaged member of the relationship has on the disadvantaged member, and explicitly advocate a focus on how interventions aimed to improve one intergroup relationship affect the broader network of relationships between groups within a society. All of these contributions are consistent with a relational approach.
However, when it comes to the question of how to produce social change, Dixon et al. abandon their relational emphasis and instead seek to determine who is right and who is wrong. They propose two models: the prejudice reduction model, in which the advantaged category provides the impetus for social change, and the collective action model, in which the disadvantaged category provides the impetus for social change. They argue, on the basis of three case studies, that the weight of the historical evidence favors the superiority of the collective action model over the prejudice reduction model. Then, to reconcile the two models, they argue for the identification of moderating variables that determine the conditions under which each is effective. Lost, in this analysis, is their earlier insight that inequality is fundamentally a relationship between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Both must act, in synchrony, to change the relationship between them.
What might a relational theory of social change look like? The development of such a theory is beyond the scope of this brief commentary, but we can sketch some of the features it would need to include (Murray & Holmes Reference Murray and Holmes2011).
1. A psychological and behavioral analysis of the unequal relationship. To change the relationship between unequal groups in society, one needs to have an ongoing understanding of how individuals on both sides of the advantage divide experience the relationship. Just as researchers of close relationships explore the motives partners bring to their relationship and how they behave in interactions, respond to each other's needs, and build trust and intimacy, so inequality researchers should explore these aspects of unequal relationships. For example, recent research has shed considerable light on how blacks and whites in the United States relate to each other, the goals and concerns they bring to their interactions, the kinds of behaviors they find reassuring or stressful in an interaction partner, and the obstacles they face to the development of close bonds (e.g., Shelton & Richeson Reference Shelton and Richeson2006).
2. A structural analysis of the unequal relationship. Achieving social change also requires an understanding of the structure of inequality. Just as close-relationship researchers probe partners' backgrounds, roles, and resources to determine the structural features of their relationship, so inequality researchers must examine how resources are unequally distributed across a category pair and the processes sustaining that asymmetry. For example, consider the structural features of racial and gender inequalities. Racial inequalities tend to coincide with contextual boundaries: Blacks occupy less advantaged contexts (e.g., neighborhoods, schools, occupations) than do whites. Gender inequalities, by contrast, crosscut these boundaries; women and men occupy the same contexts, but are unequal within them. These structural features have implications for the psychology of change. An intervention to reduce racial inequality must overcome the inclination of both blacks and whites to self-segregate, whereas an intervention to reduce gender inequality must overcome the widespread belief that it is natural and even desirable (Tilly Reference Tilly1998).
3. A temporal dimension. Relationships, including relationships of inequality, develop and change over time. This temporal dynamic is of interest in its own right and is also important for understanding how relationship partners evaluate their current and future circumstances. These evaluations are often based more heavily on the trajectory of outcomes (i.e., whether they are improving or declining), than on their absolute value. For example, the same pay gap may be evaluated negatively if it used to be smaller, positively if it used to be bigger, or negatively if it used be bigger but ought to be shrinking more quickly (Crosby Reference Crosby1976; Eibach & Keegan Reference Eibach and Keegan2006).
4. Incorporation of the broader societal context. Relationships do not exist in a vacuum; they are profoundly influenced by the broader societal context they inhabit. Just as a close relationship depends on its familial, social, and cultural environment, so too does the relationship between unequal categories depend on its broader societal and political context. Indeed, lasting change in these relationships is much more likely to come from an exogenous source (e.g., political leadership, legal actions, organizational policies) than from an endogenous source (e.g., changing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of the relating parties). Hence, any theory of social change needs to be able to account for how unequal relationships react to change, as well as how they generate it.