A social cognitive account is proposed which renders relational work in terms of the underpinning cognitive processing mechanism ‘salience’. Conducts which fit norms and expectations are salient in a ‘correlative’ way and those opposing expectations are salient in a ‘contrastive’ way. By integrating these two apparently conflicting dimensions and their affective responses, a culture-general version is realized which is autonomous and yet congruent with culture-specific inquiries. This surmounts diverse restrictions linked to former accounts like their incapacity to offer a united account of deference and linguistic phenomena of a volitional type.