Abstract:

Embodied cognition has gained more and more attention, Social psychologists have come to realize embodied cognition is not only appropriate for individual-level cognitions but also extend to social relations. The most directly relevant framework for addressing this topic is the relational models theory developed by Fiske (Smith, 2008). Fiske holds that there are four fundamental types of social relationships: Communal Sharing (CS); Authority Ranking (AR); Equality Matching (EM) and Market Pricing (MP); CS, AR and EM relations are embodied in a distinctive modality. This present paper reviewed empirical researches of embodied clues, and examined shortcomings in researching embodied social relations. In addition, future researches should focus on the development study of infancy and so on.

Key words: embodied cognition, social relationships, relational models theory