We conceptualize relating as Relational Complementarity – people jointly completing their interactions by generating behaviors that are congruent with reference to one another according to shared organizing structures of social relations. Several motives, such as belonging, trust and control, have been suggested to underlie social relatedness. We suggest that Relational Complementarity is necessary and sufficient condition for the fulfillment of such motives and test the hypothesis that social interactions where people act in complementarity with one another increase their sense of belonging, trust and control in such relationships. We exposed participants to a description of a complementary vs. non-complementary social interaction between two characters. In order to test whether such prediction is true for different types of relationships the descriptions presented either a communal sharing or a market pricing interaction. Each participant was assigned to one of the four conditions and rated the main character’s sense of belonging, trust and control in that relationship. Our hypothesis was confirmed in the market pricing scenario only. Ratings of belonging, trust and control were higher for participants in the complementary condition. Such effect was mediated by perceptions of complementarity, ruling out a possible confound with money in the market pricing interaction. Differences between the experimental and control condition are best explained by one underlying dimension including perceived complementarity, belonging, trust and control. These results suggest that Relational Complementarity may be a more parsimonious approach to the understanding of social motivations and the complex phenomenon of social relatedness.

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