According to a recent Gallup survey (USA Today "snapshot" 4-14-98) of young adults' (ages 18-34) priorities, 83% rated a close-knit family as their highest priority--even moreso than a career (rated highest by 68%). Also, for all adults, 64% say that "relationships with loved ones always are on their minds" (with "stability/security" rated second at 51%--USA Today "snapshot," 1-6-98). A recent poll of the 16 to 21 age group in the United Kingdom revealed that "to be happily married with children" was the most popular aspiration, coming out ahead of a successful business career (The Economist, January, 1999, p. 15).
    Further evidence about the impact of close relationships on health is rapidly accumulating. Myers and Diener (1995) report that people look to family and close relationships for the main sources of their happiness. Berkman, Leo-Summers, and Horwitz (1992) showed that the cahances of survival for more than one year after a heart attack are more than twice as high among men and women at mid-life and beyond the men and women are emotionally supported by two or more people. Kiecolt-Glaser and associates (1987) found that the immune systems of happily married persons fend off infections more readily than do the immune systems of unhappily married persons. More generally, Cambell, Converse, and Rodgers (1976) reported that people's feelings about their relationships have a larger impact on their overall satisfaction with their lives than do their job, income, community, or even physical health. As we will see in the dissolution chapter (Chapter 10), the end of a close relationship can be quite destructive to a person's psychological and physical health.

    Flux is the name of the game in the content of close relationships, and that has been true for over three decades in the U.S. and much of the Western world. Blumstein and Schwartz (1983) summarize much of their evidence from a large-scale study of American couples conducted in the late 1970's with this prophetic statement:
    "Families are in a significant state of flux, and the uncertainty reverberates throughout society. One consequence is that people are apprehensive about the future--the future of personal relationships in general, and the future of the specific relationships that nourish them. They do not know how to design what they want or protect what they have. They are unsure about the future of marriage" (pp. 35-36).
    Designing our family and relationship worlds still is a topic of high priority in the part of the early twenty-first century. Some Census data (Amato & Booth, 1997) regarding the considerable flux in the family and close romantic relationships over the last 3 decades include the developments presented in Table 1.3.

1. Since 1960, the number of divorces has tripled. It is estimated that there will be 1 million divorces in 1998, involving more than 1 million children. There are 70 million people in the U.S. (out of a total population of 260 million) who have been divorced at least once.
2. Today the average marriage lasts 7 years, and 10 million children live with a parent who is separated or divorced.
3. At least 150,000 divorces, or 1 in 7, will involve custody battles.
4. The number of single-parent families has more than quadrupled since 1960. There are approximately 27 million children under 18 living with only their mothers, up from 8 million in 1960.
5. Several million grandparents in the U.S. now are recycling as parents due to their children's divorces (and need to have childcare while working) or being in prison, or because of other reasons.
6. Seven million children live with an alcoholic parent, and almost 1.2 million children run away from home each year. Not surprisingly, in this context of changing structure and meaning, suicide is the leading cause of death among American teenagers.

    In addition to these trends, Census Bureau data for 1998 indicate that in the United States, there were 42 million never-married adults in 1991 (twice the number that existed in 1971). According to Census Bureau figures, the number of men and women 30 to 44 who have never married more than doubled during the last 30 years. The Census Bureau reported that the number of U.S. adults married and living with their spouse declined to an all-time low in 1998 due increasing levels of divorced and never married adults. The median age for first marriage has risen 4 years since the 1970's to about 24 years-of-age for women and 26 for men in 1998. Other reasons for this delaying or forgoing of marriage is women's greater financial independence, and the growing acceptance of alternative lifestyle choices (including staying single, homosexual, and cohabitation without marriage).
    Despite these trends, 1998 Census Bureau statistics suggest that Americans are a marrying people. Fifty-six percent of U.S. adults were married and living with their spouses. However, there continues to be a long-term trend toward a less-married population, with 59% married adults in the U.S. in 1990 versus 68% in 1970.
    Family sociologists have given us the term "starter marriage" for all the beginning marriages that end in divorce after a few years and in which no children are involved--the idea being that a first marriage is somewhat like a first home, from which one moves on.
    The quality of many marriages that remain intact over time also represents a topic of interest to marriage and family analysts. At the 1992 meeting of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, it was reported by Don-David Lusterman, a marital therapist in New York, that 10% to 12% of married people have had an affair lasting at least one month, which, in turn, when discovered by one of the uninvolved spouses leads that spouse to experience a type of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD--a term coined initially to refer to the suffering experienced by soldiers trying to recover from the psychological effects of participating in combat). Lusterman suggested that this reaction is a "disease" caused by being ripped apart by the deceit of the involved partner's lying and loss of trust in him or her. He estimated that 50% of those who suddenly find out about such a protracted infidelity show some PTSD symptoms, which include: recurrent dreams of the event (e.g., it has been reported often by men that they had trouble avoiding imagery of their partner involved in sexual embrace with the outside person); difficulty concentrating; trouble sleeping; obsessive ruminations, and outbursts of anger.
    The above details provide only a beginning sketch of the many developments in society in which the nature of the close relationship is a central concern. In the late 1990s, people were conceiving children in a variety of ways beyond the conventional biological approach. It has become an era of "high-tech" fertility, when babies are produced using sperm banks, egg donors, and frozen embryos. Fertility drugs have led to amazing situations in which mothers gave birth up to eight children.
    In one lawsuit in 1998, a man sued his former girlfriend for fraud because she had become pregnant, even though they had agreed the she would use a foolproof birth control method. He argued in court that he had been robbed by her of his sperm. This case raised a number of questions including: Does a man have a right not to become a parent? Who is responsible for contraception? Indeed, why did he not wear a condom if he was so much against her becoming pregnant? Why can a woman abort an unwanted child, but a man in the same situation can be required to pay years of child support?
    As we will see in Chapter 2 on gender, the above questions represent some of the many gender questions now confronting women and men at all points along the continuum of relating. For some people, this debate is strident. For others, it is a naturally-challenging discourse in light of the complexities of who we are as social and biological creatures. We could not expect anything less, nor are the questions and fervor of gender dialogue likely to abate in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

    How do we define a CR? One definition of close relationship that will be invaluable to our attempt to have a working definition was provided by a team of psychologists led by Harold Kelley who wrote one of the first textbooks on close relationships that emphasized a scientific orientation to the study of relationships. Kelley et al. (1983) defined close relationship as:". . . one of strong, frequent, and diverse interdependence [between two people] that lasts over a considerable period of time" (p. 38). Kelley et al. conceived interdependence as the extent to which two people's lives are closely intertwined, in terms of their behavior toward one another and thoughts and feelings about one another. They also viewed the time factor as involving months or years rather than days.
    Interdependence is represented in Figure 1 from Kelley et al. (1983). The recursive, feedback loop of forces thought to be most important in an interdependent bonding are evident in this figure.

    It can be seen that in the middle box, Person P and Person O are involved in a series of interactions over time (arrows going back and forth reflect behavior such as verbal statements and nonverbal smiles and frowns; arrows going down reflect time). Outward arrows from the PXO box show how the couple affects the external environment (E soc) and how their interactions form a unit P,O that is different from each of them. This latter effect is quite interesting. The couple becomes the third part of the relationship (P, O, and the P-O unit). It is often said that each love relationship involves a particular type of coupling. This figure suggest that coupling derives from the particular interactions of the two people. Further, this figure shows an arrow going from the P,O unit back to the box of PXO interaction, reflecting the influence of the particular nature of the couple on interactions.
    It also should be noted from Figure 1 that outside events in the environment affect the PXO coupling. There are many examples of this phenomenon. During World War II, many marriages between American male soldiers and English women occurred when the soldiers spent sometimes up to a year in England in preparation for the Normandy invasion in 1944. In yet another type of influence by the outside environment on the couple, Julien, Markman, Leveille, Chartrand, and Begin (1994) reported that when female confidants were more supportive in confiding interactions with wives, the wives indicated that they felt less distress in their marriages and c loser to their husbands. Thus, wives' interpretations of their marital relationships may be influenced quite a bit by the types of beliefs and opinions provided by others in the social environment-especially close female friends.
    The psychotherapist John Welwood (1990) defines a close relationship as ". . .rather than being just a form of togetherness, a ceaseless flowing back and forth between joining and separating" (p. 117). The "pulling" part frequently is one or both partner's work at autonomy. Baxter and Montgomery (1996) more explicitly address the dialectic nature of relationships (e.g., our co-occurring needs for autonomy and dependency). The yin and yang of a close relationship is how to achieve balance between the couple's need for being united on many critical dimensions and the need of the individual member of the couple to achieve autonomy.
    A simpler approach to defining a close relationships is a relationship that has extended over some period of time and involves a mutual understanding of closeness and mutual behavior that is seen by the couple as indicative of closeness (Harvey, 1995). According to this definition, a number of deductions about what CRs are and are not may be made. For example, so-called "empty shell" and "convenience marriages" in which neither party may define the relationship as close do not constitute CRS. What are some other major implications of this definition?
    While the couple may use the term "love" or some other term for "closeness," the key is that they each believe it exists to some degree between them and that they each believe that behavior consistent with that sentiment occurs. A close relationship a process. It flows along, not unlike a river, with varying degrees of intensity and various bends and crooks in its path. While it may run dry, or terminate, the path that the relationship forged likely will continue, indefinitely, to have consequence in the minds and actions of its participants. Does it matter if the members of a couple feel different degrees of closeness or exhibit different degrees of behavior consistent with closeness? No. Most couples likely will show variability within the relationship and over time in their feelings and behavior. They need to be satisfied with the differences, or as will be described in Chapter 6 on maintenance, work toward resolutions to differences that are problematic.
    Will a close relationship exist if one party feels close and behaves as if he or she is close, while the second party does neither? No. The feeling and behavior must be mutual. Many people have imaginary lovers who never reciprocate. If there is no reciprocation, there is no close relationship. What about biological/blood relationships? Are they always close? No. Only if the feeling and behavior mutually support closeness. What about friendships? The same. Some may be close relationships, some are not.
    What about the length factor? Is it not possible that some "less extensive" periods of time will be propitious for the formation of a close relationship? Yes. But the average period for such a development will be "more extended," or in the time-frame of months or years as Kelley et al. (1983) contend. Certainly, a sexual relationship may be started on the average in a shorter period; but a sexual relationship does not necessarily make a close relationship. One may live only a short period after starting what clearly involves mutual closeness with a partner. We must say that such a person did indeed have a close relationship and that it unfortunately could not be extensive in nature. As we all age and sometimes take on new partners in older ages, there may be only a few weeks or months duration to some relationships. Our definition must entertain enough flexibility to consider the context of relating, and in such cases, close relationships clearly do exist.
    What about change over time? Is it not possible that mutuality in feeling and behavior may ebb and flow over a long relationship such that at some points, one or both parties may be essentially acting as if no close relationship exists. Yes. That is a common occurrence. They may or may not come back together, and how fatal the downward spiral is may be determined by many factors including perceived betrayal (as when one is involved in an affair that is found out about by the other who perceives such an act as fatal in nature).
    What if one party vacillates greatly between feeling and expressions of closeness and feelings and messages that paint a picture of ambivalence ("I love you, but I don't know if I want you in my life."); while the other party generally is consistent in his or her feelings and behaviors, suggesting closeness? Some degree of ambivalence and vacillation exists in most close relationships (cf. Welwood's 1990 argument). However, the relationship in question was, at least at one time, a close one. As it moves toward a high degree of ambivalence because of the double-bind acts of one or both members, it may move away from a close relationship--indeed if this type of activity continues, one or both parties likely will "un-declare" closeness. This type of relationship also may be a good candidate for therapy, especially if the party bringing the greatest degree of ambivalent behavior into the union honestly wants to try to see if the relationship can be restored.
    These considerations deal with only a few of the many issues people and scholars confront when they try to define the cherished state of a close relationship. Because we are such complex and changing creatures living in changing times, our definitional approach must be able to deal with a host of nuances and be flexible to context factors.

Complementing the question of what is a close relationship is the question of what are the characteristics of a relationship. Hinde (1995) provided an analysis of relationship characteristics. Similar to the Kelley et al. (1983) book, Hinde's statement was aimed at enhancing the scientific-testable qualities of the field of close relationships. Table 1.2 presents Hinde's (1995) characteristics of relationships.

1. The content of the interactions. What do the people do together? What is their usually interaction pattern like?
2. The diversity of types of interaction within the relationship. The more types of activity the people do together, the more experiences are shared.
3. The qualities of the interactions. Did the people communicate constructively, competitively, loudly, softly, lovingly? Both content analysis of speech and nonverbal behavior will be relevant data. As important is what the people think about the merits and qualities of their relationship.
4. The relative frequency and patterning of relationships. This category includes the extent to which interactions of different types are jointly present. This characteristic pertains to the structure of the relationship (e.g., controlling or permissive interactions).
5. The reciprocity vs. complementarity nature of the interactions. This distinction refers to the need for which satisfaction is sought in a relationship. Do the people reciprocate behaviors or complement one another (e.g., one is introverted and one extraverted)? Most close relationships involve a complex and idiosyncratic mix of reciprocal and complentarity interactive patterns.
6. Power and autonomy. Issues of power and autonomy are part of the complementarity pattern. One partner can be said to have power over the other if he or she can influence the quality of the consequences of other's behavior. How power is exerted may be assessed by the quality of the interactions (e.g., persuasion vs. command). If one person in a relationship exercises power, that reduces the other's autonomy. But what is critical is how the power differential is perceived by the other. Lack of agreement about the exercise of power can lead to conflict.
7. Intimacy-the extent to which the people reveal themselves (emotionally, cognitively, and physically) to each other. Intimacy requires the person making the disclosure to feel understood, validated, and cared for and is thus related to trust (see discussion of "minding theory in Chapter 6 on maintenance and enhancement of close relationships).
8. Interpersonal perception. Does one partner see the other as the other really is? Does one partner see the other as the other sees self? Does one partner feel understood by how the other partner sees him or her? Does the couple see the world outside the relationship in similar ways? These are critical questions for closeness.
9. Commitment. Do the partners strive to ensure the continuation of the relationship or improve its quality? Does each see the other as committed?
10. Satisfaction. Do the people perceive the relationship as close to their ideal, or preferable to other relationship they could be in?

    Unfortunately, too much research on relationships only studies the final satisfaction characteristic that Hinde (1995) delineated. Also, as Hinde acknowledges, the meaning or significance of a characteristic may depend on other aspects of the relationship. Conflict, for example, often is harmful, but it can be constructive if carried out in the context of commitment and strong signs of intimacy.

    What are some of the major theoretical issues facing the relationships field? As part of a presentation to a meeting of the International Society for the Study of Personal Relationships, Kelley (1995) presented a challenge to the field. He contended that the field lacks a framework or a broad theory. He suggested that the root of the problem was the absence of a clear concept of "relationship."
    After listening to the diverse presentations about relationships at this conference, Kelley said that two images of "relationship" emerged in his interpretation: One visualizes a fly in the spider's web. "It exists as a smallish, undifferentiated entity at the center of a converging pattern of causal factors-a sort of victim of a network of external factors" (1995, p. 1).
    Kelley said that the second image he derived for "relationship" from the various papers was no explicit representation because it exists ". . . as an invisible wraith in the background-a sort of 'ghost in the machine' "(p. 1). Kelley saw this machine as some representation of a flow chart of psychological events, typically for one person. If the relationship had any existence at all, it was in the head of one person or possibly a shared schema with another.
    Kelley went on to define a relationship consistent with Kelley et al. (1983) and Kelley (1978) as a state of interaction process among two or more persons. It does not, according to Kelley, reside in its members' minds. It is a state of interaction, that exhibits some pattern. Kelley used the term "interpersonologist" for the scholar of relationships who studies these interaction patterns. Such patterns will manifest themselves in the micro-phenomena of the field: giving affection and attention, quarreling, blaming, interrupting, praising, showing hurt, and so on.
    Kelley believes that his view of relationship is fairly radical and offers a different image of relationships compared to terms such as "marriage," "dating," "friendship," "gay," and co-worker. His definition speaks to the interaction patterns that fairly clearly define such terms. Kelley also argued that at present the field is too reliant on self-reports of behavior (see discussion later in this chapter of different methods). He believes that we need to do more observing, coding, and quantifying actual behavior. He believes that our main job is do more observation of relationship patterns that epitomize events such as loving behavior. Finally, he believes that this approach will allow the field to better establish reference points for the phenomena that are uniquely interpersonal.
    Kelley's points continue to have merit. As we will see, one of the most difficult enterprises we have, however, is the ethical observation of people's private moments-which are the ones in which "relationship" may be actualized more than in public (or research participation) moments. Further, as suggested in the earlier emphasis on mutual definition and behavior as defining acts of a "close relationship," we need to combine the study of interaction with the study of what people tell us is in their minds about their interactions (which may comport to "mutuality" both in thinking and doing). Without the evidence about their thinking about their interaction, we will not be able to know the meaning of the interaction in its fullest. Nor will we be able to predict future interaction patterns readily unless we know how people interpret their interactions with others and whether those interactions constitute "closeness" to them. In the end, how we can have a full science of close relationships unless we are both interpersonologists and phenomenologists?
    Berscheid (1999) also has provided an interesting commentary on the development of the close relationships field. She too argued that the individualistic orientation traditionally found in psychological studies needed to be replaced by an interpersonal focus for a more telling inquiry into close relationships. Attitudes, traits, skills, genes, and such are located in individuals, and the study of them does not give us information about interaction patterns. She notes that studies of human behavior conducted in relationless contexts cannot be expected to transfer to behavior in the relationship context typical of naturalistic contexts. Berscheid suggests that the rhythm of a relationship is revealed over time and situation; relationships are temporal not static. Thus, we need to emphasize research that takes into account the time and situation (and to extrapolate from Berscheid, "culture" too), as we plan research.
    Berscheid contends that the development of relationship science will contribute to the amelioration of human problems (see also Berscheid, 1994, Berscheid & Reis, 1997), from violence to psychopathology. Further, she believes that an objective for the burgeoning field of the study of close relationships is to better inform public policy (cf. later discussion of the covenant marriage law). She suggests that the images people in the real world have of relationships is that they are impervious to the events of the world and their environments, when in truth such events and environmental conditions have enormous impacts on close relationships. Berscheid notes the finding of South and Lloyd (1995) that the risk of marital dissolution in the U.S. is highest in geographical areas where there is an abundance of potential alternatives to a present spouse. Truisms such as "love conquers all" are more illusory than accurate depictions of reality.
    Berscheid and her colleagues (see Berscheid, Ammazzalorso, Langenfeld, & Lopes, in press) have obtained data suggesting that people are better able to understand the causes of relationship events in retrospect, after some time has passed-in their "rear view mirror" so to speak. This type of evidence coheres with the argument divorced people make about learning a great deal from relationship break-down. The essence of Berscheid's comments, though, is that relationship scholars need to pay more attention to the environments influencing relationships and less to what the relationship participants think and feel at the time of the events in question. Berscheid concludes her provocative essay by asserting, "The emergence of relationship science represents the flag of a higher truth that has now been planted in the individualistic soul of our discipline" (1999, p. 265).

    The relationship between the economy and close relationships increasingly is receiving attention among scholars and general analysts in this country today. In 1992, the economist Gary Becker of the University of Chicago won a Nobel Prize in economics partially for his analysis of the relations among marriage and the economy. He argued that love, marriage, and family life respond more quickly to economics than to any manipulations politicians attempt in the sphere of public policy. In describing his position, Becker said, "People marry when the utility expected from marriage exceeds the utility expected from remaining single. . . . They expect to maximize the amount of household-produced commodities such as the quality of meals, the quality and quantity of children, prestige, recreation, companionship, love and health status" (quoted in Clarence Page's column in the October 25, 1992, Chicago Tribune, Section 2, p. 7).
    Similarly, Becker suggested that couples divorce when the utility of staying married falls below the utility expected from getting divorced. Accordingly, good marriages are based on god business decisions. Becker's position definitely sounds a bit simplistic. Such a conclusion readily could be developed based on the many other perspectives and factors involved in close relationships, some of which will be discussed in this book. Nonetheless, making-a-living and relating no doubt are vitally related and must be addressed before many other issues with relationships can be tackled.
    We all know that part of the burden on contemporary families is the frequent necessity of all adult family members holding jobs--just to make ends meet. This burden may be particularly daunting for the single-parent family, since the one parent has to make a living, care for and nurture the children, and try to take care of self. All of these activities simply do not fit into the average week, not to mention the fact that the parent is totally "wiped out" in energy before the typical week is done. In the two-parent family, this scenario leads to both parents often coming home well after children arrive home from school. Or various day-care options--that are too commonly marginal in care--are pursued while the parents work long days.

    As we move into the twenty-first century, a national discourse on close relationships and the family is in full bloom. Many elements are driving this discourse, including demographic data such as the foregoing that have led to calls for national attention to the high, consistent divorce rate and its negative impacts on families and children.
    One answer to the concern about marriage and divorce in the late 1990s was the advent of the Covenant Marriage Law that as of 1999 has been enacted into law in Louisiana and Arizona. This law requires premarital counseling (that can be done via a couple's religious organization). Most significantly, it involves a more rigorous set of conditions for divorce than is present under the so-called "no fault" type of divorce that has been the law since the early 1970s in the United States. Grounds for divorce such as adultery need to be established. After a couple has filed for divorce, there is a two-year waiting period for the divorce to be final under the Covenant Marriage Law. As of 1999, only a few hundred couples out of thousands getting married in Louisiana had elected to be married under this law. Critics had thought that many couples would feel pressured to marry under this law, because it implies greater faith in the relationship and its continuity.
    Strongly involved in the establishment of the Covenant Marriage Law have been certain conservative religious organizations, including evangelical protestant churches. These organizations and their spokespersons often suggest that marriage is being rendered less effective by the mores of an overly secular culture in the United States.

    Throughout this book, research techniques in studying different relationship phenomena will be discussed. At this point, however, a general commentary on methods may set the stage for particular discussions later.
    Most research in this field involves college student or relatively young respondents and cross sectional, self-report, retrospective designs. These methods inform us about the relationships among a set of static variables, such as gender or personality/attachment type, and courtship events and relationship satisfaction or other outcome variables. Archival studies, involving the examination of public records (e.g., filing for divorce; filing for a covenant marriage license) also are fairly common. Experimentation is seldom employed except in scenario studies (Berscheid, 1994). Obviously, ethical considerations constrain us from manipulating major facets of relationships and observing the effects of these manipulations.
    This "state of the art" type of methodology may provide insights and ultimately relatively strong knowledge when ample diverse studies have been done. Nevertheless, An improvement over cross-sectional, retrospective, archival designs is the prospective, longitudinal design, which follows a sample of individuals over time (not unlike the famous Bennington College Study by Newcomb and colleagues (Newcomb et al., 1967; this study sampled women's attitudes and behavior from the time they entered Bennington until they graduated, and then followed up with surveys and contacts decades later). Such designs are expensive and time-consuming, but they are essential to provide strong knowledge about the process of change that is omnipresent in close relationships.

    Throughout this book, I also will include a set of descriptions of and commentaries on research studies on relationships that help us understand both the theories and methods of studying relationships in the early 2000s. The following study shows the increasing role of personality instruments in this field: Baldwin, M.W., & Keelan, J.P.R. (1999). Interpersonal expectations as a function of self-esteem and sex. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 16, 822-833.
    This single study involved sampling 182 men and women of high and low self-esteem (measured by Rosenberg's self-esteem inventory) in terms of their "if-then" expectations regarding interactions with significant others. Respondents also were administered the Interpersonal Schema Questionnaire (ISQ), that asks people to imagine behaving in certain ways (e.g., in a dominant or friendly way) towards a significant other, and then to choose which response they likely would receive in turn.
    More generally, this work follows Baldin's previous work on relational schemas or knowledge structures representing regularities in patterns of interaction. For example, one's sense of self as worthy of acceptance is hypothesized to be associated with the sense of other as accepting. Views of self and other are embedded in scripts or event schemas representing expectancies about patterns of interaction in significant relationships.
    The findings indicated that participants expected response complementarity, with their own friendliness leading to affiliation with others and submission leading to dominance. Also, high self-esteem people reported greater confidence that being friendly would draw affiliative responses from others, and women more than men expected more affiliative responses to their friendly overtures. The data are interpreted as supporting Baldwin's view of the self as embedded in relational schemas and consistent with previous evidence on gender, with women being more attuned to ways of maintaining harmony in relationships.
    Critical points about the research (and not mentioned by the authors) include: the work used a single short self-esteem inventory; the work focused only on imagined relationships (via the ISQ); the work involved no reported actual social interaction. Only relatively young college respondents (freshmen) were included; none was married or in cohabiting relationships. On the plus side, the work is well-framed within schema theory, yielded useful data, and is state-of-the-art for scenario-design simulation work on social-cognitive factors associated with close relationships.

    A vibrant field of work on close relationships exists as we move into the twenty-first century. The field is broad in representation among different disciplines, including: psychology, sociology, family studies, communication studies, and social work. It encompasses both experimental and non-experimental methods, scientific and humanistic directions. The nuances and issues of relationship phenomena have inspired hundreds of enthusiastic young scholars to orient their work toward this field. This trend likely will continue to be pronounced as humans continue to embark on new relationship and family patterns and search for answers to relationships problems that have pervasive impacts on all aspects of their lives.
    As we will see in coming chapters, there are many areas needing work on theory and research in the close relationships field. We will come back to these issues in the final chapter. At this point, a listing of some of these issues facing the field as we enter the twenty-first century includes:

1. The need for more research that follows couples and family units across time and different situations and observes change processes.
2. The need for stronger theory and research on the deterioration of close relationships.
3. The need for comparison study of different types of close relationships (including friendships, homosexual and bi-sexual relationships).
4. The need for further work on how couples succeed in maintaining and enhancing their close relationships.
5. The need for more research on cross-cultural similarities and differences in close relationships.
6. The need for a stronger understanding of links among biological, psychophysiological, cognitive, emotional, social-environmental, and cultural forces as they affect close relationships.
7. The need for more research on close relationships at different developmental points, including especially at mid-life and beyond.

    It should be noted at the outset that this book reflects the author's biases as a social psychologist. While I try to represent other points-of-view in extant work on close relationships, the perspective of a psychologist who emphasizes situational/environmental influences on behavior will be seen often in the pages that follow.