Models between relations

Horrible title, so I’m sorry about that.

I’m curious if it’s possible for a component to respect/use the model for a relation when preforming a query?

Say I have 4 components that all have a relation to the same component, can I modify the model/controller for that base component so that all dependent components will use it?

Some initial testing shows this isn’t the case, and I’d need to update each of the parent components to reflect the changes in common component.