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Relational Mobility: A Socio-Ecological Approach to Psychological and Behavioral Variation
Relational Mobility: A Socio-Ecological Approach to Psychological and Behavioral Variation
How do societies shape psychological and behavioral tendencies of people who live there? As social animals, humans collectively create social environments while also adapting to them. Psychological processes are therefore closely intertwined with the characteristics of social environments in which people live.
From this socio-ecological perspective, our research examines how relational mobility, a feature of social environments referring to the degree of freedom people have to form new relationships and leave or replace existing ones, is associated with a broad range of psychological and behavioral tendencies. Using cross-cultural surveys, experiments, and other empirical approaches, we investigate how relational mobility is associated with trust, cooperation, reputation management, self-concept, relationship formation, and well-being.
For more information about relational mobility research, including the Relational Mobility Scale, please visit RelationalMobility.org.
Selected Publications
Selected Publications
Kito, M., Yuki, M., & Thomson, R. (2017). Relational mobility and close relationships: A socioecological approach to explain cross-cultural differences. Personal Relationships, 24, 114–130. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12174
Thomson, R., Yuki, M., Talhelm, T., Schug, J., Kito, M., Ayanian, A. H., . . . Visserman, M. L. (2018). Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(29), 7521–7526. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1713191115
Yuki, M., & Schug, J. (2020). Psychological consequences of relational mobility. Current Opinion in Psychology, 32, 129–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.07.029
Relational Mobility World Map (Thomson et al., 2018)
Recent Research in Relational Mobility
Recent Research in Relational Mobility
Reputation information sharing (Kusakabe & Yuki, 2026)
Concealing prosocial behaviors (Li, Suzuki, Ishiyama, Kavanagh, & Yuki, 2026)
Direct and indirect social controls (Li, Ishiyama & Yuki, 2025)
Prestige leadership (Ito, Maeda, Gobel, Uchida & Yuki, 2024)
Group functions and well-being (Easterbrook et al., 2025)
Rejection avoidance (Kusakabe, Maeda & Yuki, 2024)
Pride and embarrassment in successful situations (Maeda & Yuki, 2023)
Cultural Variation in Group Processes
Cultural Variation in Group Processes
How do cultures shape the ways people perceive, evaluate, and behave in groups? Although cultural differences in group-oriented behavior are often discussed in terms of individualism and collectivism, the principles that guide group behaviors can differ across societies. Our research has examined cultural variation in these principles, including differences between a stronger orientation toward relationships within groups, often observed in East Asian societies, and a stronger orientation toward competition and comparison between groups, often observed in North American societies.
Selected Publications
Selected Publications
Yuki, M. (2003). Intergroup comparison versus intragroup relationships: A cross-cultural examination of social identity theory in North American and East Asian cultural contexts. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(2), 166-183. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519846
Yuki, M., & Takemura, K. (2013). Intergroup comparison and intragroup relationships: Group processes in the cultures of individualism and collectivism. In M. Yuki & M. B. Brewer (Eds.), Culture and group processes (pp. 38-65). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Cultural Variation in Facial Emotion Perception
Cultural Variation in Facial Emotion Perception
How do people infer others’ emotions from facial expressions? Although facial expressions are universally used in interpersonal communication, people may attend to and interpret facial cues differently across cultural contexts. Our research has uncovered cultural variation in the relative weight assigned to the eyes and mouth when recognizing emotions: Japanese participants tend to rely more strongly on cues from the eyes, whereas American participants tend to rely more strongly on cues from the mouth. These findings suggest that culture shapes not only how emotions are expressed, but also how people perceive and interpret others’ emotional states.
Selected Publications
Selected Publications
Yuki, M., Maddux, W. W., & Masuda, T. (2007). Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and West? Cultural differences in using the eyes and mouth as cues to recognize emotions in Japan and the United States. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(2), 303-311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.02.004
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