In social psychology, an interpersonal relation describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more persons. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which are the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences. Relations vary in degrees of intimacy, self-disclosure, duration, reciprocity, and power distribution. The main themes or trends of the interpersonal relations are: family, kinship, friendship, love, marriage, business, employment, clubs, neighborhoods, ethical values, support and solidarity. Interpersonal relations may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and form the basis of social groups and societies. They appear when people communicate or act with each other within specific social contexts, and they thrive on equitable and reciprocal compromises.
Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.
Open marriage is a form of non-monogamy in which the partners of a dyadic marriage agree that each may engage in extramarital sexual or romantic relationships, without this being regarded by them as infidelity, and consider or establish an open relationship despite the implied monogamy of marriage. There are variant forms of open marriage such as swinging and polyamory, each with the partners having varying levels of input into their spouse's activities.
A relationship breakup, breakup, or break-up is the ending of a relationship. The act is commonly termed "dumping [someone]" in slang when it is initiated by one partner. The term is less likely to be applied to a married couple, where a breakup is typically called a separation or divorce. When a couple engaged to be married breaks up, it is typically called a "broken engagement". People commonly think of breakups in a romantic aspect, however, there are also non-romantic and platonic breakups, and this type of relationship dissolution is usually caused by failure to maintain a friendship.
An open relationship is an intimate relationship that is sexually non-monogamous. An open relationship generally indicates a relationship where there is a primary emotional and intimate relationship between partners, who agree to at least the possibility of sexual or emotional intimacy with other people. The term "open relationship" is sometimes used interchangeably with the term polyamory, but the two concepts are not identical.
In colloquial usage, contempt usually refers to either the act of despising, or having a general lack of respect for something. This set of emotions generally produces maladaptive behaviour. Other authors define contempt as a negative emotion rather than the constellation of mentality and feelings that produce an attitude. Paul Ekman categorises contempt as the seventh basic emotion, along with anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. Robert C. Solomon places contempt on the same emotional continuum as resentment and anger, and he argues that the differences between the three are that resentment is anger directed towards a higher-status individual; anger is directed towards an equal-status individual; and contempt is anger directed towards a lower-status individual.
An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves emotional or physical closeness between people and may include sexual intimacy and feelings of romance or love. Intimate relationships are interdependent, and the members of the relationship mutually influence each other. The quality and nature of the relationship depends on the interactions between individuals, and is derived from the unique context and history that builds between people over time. Social and legal institutions such as marriage acknowledge and uphold intimate relationships between people. However, intimate relationships are not necessarily monogamous or sexual, and there is wide social and cultural variability in the norms and practices of intimacy between people.
Hildegard E. Peplau was an American nurse and the first published nursing theorist since Florence Nightingale. She created the middle-range nursing theory of interpersonal relations, which helped to revolutionize the scholarly work of nurses. As a primary contributor to mental health law reform, she led the way towards humane treatment of patients with behavior and personality disorders.
John Mordecai Gottman is an American psychologist and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington. His research focuses on divorce prediction and marital stability through relationship analyses. Gottman's work has impacted the field of relationship counseling. He is aiming to enhance relationship functioning and mitigate behaviors detrimental to human relationships. Gottman's work has also contributed to the development of important concepts on social sequence analysis.
In psychology, the theory of attachment can be applied to adult relationships including friendships, emotional affairs, adult romantic and carnal relationships and, in some cases, relationships with inanimate objects. Attachment theory, initially studied in the 1960s and 1970s primarily in the context of children and parents, was extended to adult relationships in the late 1980s. The working models of children found in Bowlby's attachment theory form a pattern of interaction that is likely to continue influencing adult relationships.
Marital breakdown refers to the common process whereby the relationship between a married couple erodes, such that they cannot ordinarily restore their relationship. There are many stages to the process, and each individual goes through the stages at different rates. It is a complex process involving psychology, personal finance, and often religion. It is the breach of domestic anticipation, often leading to a divorce or dissolution of the marital relationship. Often there are children, in-laws, and other individuals involved in the process. At the end of the process, there may be no relationship left, or there may be a long-term relationship at a distance. Every marital breakdown is different in this regard.
Donald H. Baucom, is a clinical psychology faculty member at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is recognized for founding the field of Cognitive-Behavioral Couples Therapy. Baucom is also recognized as one of the top marital therapists and most prolific researchers in this field. Currently, Baucom's National Cancer Institute funded study, CanThrive, has the largest observationally coded sample of any couples study to date.
Interpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people. It is also an area of research that seeks to understand how humans use verbal and nonverbal cues to accomplish several personal and relational goals. Communication includes utilizing communication skills within one's surroundings, including physical and psychological spaces. It is essential to see the visual/nonverbal and verbal cues regarding the physical spaces. In the psychological spaces, self-awareness and awareness of the emotions, cultures, and things that are not seen are also significant when communicating.
Isaac Michael "Zick" Rubin is an American social psychologist, lawyer, and author. He is "widely credited as the author of the first empirical measurement of love," for his work distinguishing feelings of like from feelings of love via Rubin's Scales of Liking and Loving. Science Progress stated, "The major breakthrough in research on love came from the pioneer psychometric work of Zick Rubin."
An on-again, off-again relationship is a form of interpersonal relationship between two people whose breakups are followed by reconciliation, perpetuating a cycle. Relationship reconciliation is defined as the process in which partners attempt to heal the hurt or wrong that was done and move on from it in order to progress forward in the relationship. This process of breaking up and getting back together can be short-term or long-term.
Steven W. Duck is a British social psychologist turned communication scholar, working as the Daniel & Amy Starch Distinguished Research Professor and Chair up to 2021, Department of Rhetoric, at the University of Iowa. He has made contributions to the scientific field of social and personal relationships.
"Conscious uncoupling" is a neologism used in the 21st century to refer to a relatively amicable marital divorce. The term was created by psychotherapist and author, Katherine Woodward Thomas and popularized by Gwyneth Paltrow in 2014, who used the phrase to describe her and her husband's then-recent separation.
Susan Anderson, LCSW is the American author of The Journey from Abandonment to Healing, a self-help book about the pain of relationship breakups. Anderson developed her ideas after her husband of eighteen years left her for another woman. Anderson was interviewed on The Early Show (CBS) on February 14, 2007 She was also interviewed on National Public Radio (NPR) Inner Visions "Overcoming Self Sabotage and Healing Abandonment" June 23, 2015.
George Levinger (1927–2017) was Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Born in Berlin, Germany, he fled the Nazi regime with his Jewish family in 1935, first moving to Switzerland and then to London, before emigrating to the United States in 1941. He received his B.A. from Columbia University in 1946. After his army service in Tokyo and time in the import-export business, he received a 1951 M.A. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and a 1955 Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan. He later taught at Bryn Mawr College (1957–60), Western Reserve University (1960–65), and the University of Massachusetts (1965–92).
Tie signs are signs, signals, and symbols, that are revealed through people's actions as well as objects such as engagement rings, wedding bands, and photographs of a personal nature that suggest a relationship exists between two people. For romantic couples, public displays of affection (PDA) including things like holding hands, an arm around a partner's shoulders or waist, extended periods of physical contact, greater-than-normal levels of physical proximity, grooming one's partner, and “sweet talk” are all examples of common tie signs. Tie signs inform the participants, as well as outsiders, about the nature of a relationship, its condition, and even what stage a relationship is in.
