The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships

Anita L. Vangelisti holds the Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair in Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. She was editor of the Cambridge University Press book series on Advances in Personal Relationships and has served on the editorial boards of over a dozen scholarly journals. Vangelisti served as President and is a fellow of the International Association for Relationship Research, a fellow of the International Communication Association, and a distinguished scholar of the National Communication Association. Daniel Perlman is Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia and University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has been President of four academic associations including the International Society for the Study of Personal Relationships and the International Association for Relationship Research and has been editor or co-editor of five journals including Personal Relationships, and the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Susan Sprecher is Distinguished Professor at Illinois State University in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, with a joint appointment with Psychology. She was the editor of Personal Relationships (2002–2006), and she has published over 140 articles and chapters as well as co-edited several books. She has been actively involved in various positions for the International Association for Relationship Research, including a term as President.

'The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships is the most venerated reference volume in relationship science. Here, in its third edition, it delivers an up-to-date, expansive, and essential overview of a flourishing discipline. I'm so grateful that such a tremendous resource exists. Highly recommended!' Eli J. Finkel, Professor of Psychology and Management & Organizations, Northwestern University, USA

• Personal relationships: an introduction; 1. The tides of change: recent trends and developments in close relationships research; 2. Theories and research in personal relationships; 3. Lift every voice: an inclusive perspective on considering methodological trade-offs in relationships research; 4. Dyadic data analysis: current issues and directions; 5. Relationship beginnings: selection and initiation; 6. Relationship development and growth; 7. The longitudinal course of couple relationships; 8. Recent advances in research on children's friendships; 9. Personal relationships with parents and peers in adolescence; 10. Close relationships in middle and late adulthood; 11. Family systems and family relationships: family subsystems across diverse families; 12. Personality influences in relationships: how self-esteem, neuroticism, and agreeableness affect hurt feelings; 13. Internal working models of attachment: a lifespan perspective; 14. Ethnicity, culture, and close relationships: examining intraracial and interracial relationships; 15. Relationship neuroscience; 16. Interpersonal social cognition and relationship evaluation; 17. Communication: basic properties and their relevance to relationship research; 18. How communal relational contexts shape (and are shaped by) emotional lives; 19. Self-disclosure in relationships: disclosure dynamics as a seismograph of relationship quality; 20. Social support in close relationships; 21. Understanding couple conflict; 22. Sexuality in relationships: highlights and oversights from recent research; 23. Transgressions, (un)forgiveness and revenge; 24. Stress and dyadic coping; 25. Aggression and violence in romantic relationships; 26. Understanding the problem of loneliness and the challenge of addressing it; 27. Relationship dissolution; 28. Love in relationships; 29. Relationship satisfaction; 30. Commitment processes in close relationships; 31. Relationships and physical health; 32. Social networks and personal relationships; 33. Friendships and acquaintanceships; 34. Technology and personal relationships; 35. Examining intimate relationships across black populations with a focus on context: socioeconomic status and racial discrimination; 36. Promoting healthy couple relationships; 37. Maintaining relationships; 38. Treating relationship distress; 39. Teaching relationship science; 40. Relationship science: a hard look at the state of the science and an agenda for moving forward; Index.