People build different kinds of relationships throughout life—friendships, family bonds, romantic partners, work connections, and even online chats. These ties affect how people live, think, and feel. Experts have long studied how these bonds help or harm people’s well-being. However, one key question remains: How do people think about these connections and relationships across cultures and time?
Scientists at Beijing Normal University have created a new model to explain how people understand their relationships. This study, published in Nature Human Behavior, uses data from around the world to show how human connections are shaped by culture, time, and personal experience.
To find answers, lead researcher Yin Wang and his team collected survey responses from 20,427 people in 19 regions across five continents. They also included in-person interviews with members of the Mosuo tribe in China, a community known for its strong family traditions. The team also studied old writings that showed how people formed relationships over the past 3,000 years.
The researchers utilized computer tools to organize the data and identify patterns. This allowed them to understand how individuals from various cultures and times structure their relationships. Based on these findings, the team developed a clear framework to describe these patterns, which they named the FAVEE-HPP model.
FAVEE stands for five key ideas: formality, activeness, valence (positive or negative feelings), exchange (give-and-take), and equality. These are the qualities people consider when evaluating their relationships. The model categorizes relationships into three types: hostile, private, and public.
“Our study reveals this fundamental framework called the FAVEE-HPP model,” Wang said. “It shows that humans use the five dimensions, which are formality, activeness, valence, exchange, and equality, and the three categories, which are hostile, private, and public, to represent their social relationships. We’ve also proven that this framework is consensual across different cultures, societies, and historical time points.”
This study is vital because it gives researchers a simple, organized way to understand human relationships using data. The model could help explain real-life issues such as divorce, how supported people feel by others, mental health, and even how long someone might live.
The team hopes that future studies will examine how individuals form their views on relationships as they grow. They also aim to explore why people perceive connections differently, based on their backgrounds or life experiences.
Wang and his team have shared their data openly on GitHub. This means other scientists can use the same information to ask new questions and build on the study.
In the future, the researchers hope their model will help people understand how relationships grow and change across generations and in different parts of the world.
