Recipient of the 2014 International Association for Relationship Researchers Book Award! This multidisciplinary text highlights the development of romantic relationships, from initiation to commitment or demise, by highlighting the historical context, current research and theory, and diversity of patterns. Engagingly written with colorful examples, the authors examine the joy, stress, power-struggles, intimacy, and aggression that characterize these relationships. Readers gain a better understanding as to why, even after the pain and suffering associated with a breakup, most of us go right back out and start again. Relationships are examined through an interdisciplinary lens -psychological, sociological, environmental and communicative perspectives are all considered. End of chapter summaries, lists of key concepts, and additional readings serve as a review. As a whole the book explores what precipitates success or failure of these relationships and how this has changed over time. Highlights of the book's coverage:Incorporates both cross-sex and same-sex romantic relationships Examines the roles of gender, race, class, culture, age, and sexuality in relationship development Looks at multiple types of romantic relationships in emerging adulthood, including dating and cohabitation Explores both positive and negative relational processes Analyzes the latest and most important scholarship. The book opens with an introduction followed by a historical overview of the development of relationships. Next relationship development models are examined including the influence of social factors and the interaction of the partners involved. This volume examines how partners initiate romantic relationships, including infatuation, sexual attraction, and the impact of technology; how cohabitation affects the quality of the future of the relationship; and the individual, social, and circumstantial factors that predict stability or break-ups in romantic relationships. The book ends with an examination of the "dark side" of relationships, and suggestions for future research on romantic pairings. Intended as a supplement for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses in marriage and family, personal/close/intimate relationships, or interpersonal/family communication taught in human development and family studies, psychology, social work, sociology, communication, counseling and therapy, this book also appeals to researchers and practitioners interested in the romantic relationship processes.

Recipient of the 2014 International Association for Relationship Researchers Book Award! This multidisciplinary text highlights the development of romantic relationships, from initiation to commitment or demise, by highlighting the historical context, current research and theory, and diversity of patterns. Engagingly written with colorful examples, the authors examine the joy, stress, power-struggles, intimacy, and aggression that characterize these relationships. Readers gain a better understanding as to why, even after the pain and suffering associated with a breakup, most of us go right back out and start again. Relationships are examined through an interdisciplinary lens -psychological, sociological, environmental and communicative perspectives are all considered. End of chapter summaries, lists of key concepts, and additional readings serve as a review. As a whole the book explores what precipitates success or failure of these relationships and how this has changed over time. Highlights of the book's coverage:Incorporates both cross-sex and same-sex romantic relationships Examines the roles of gender, race, class, culture, age, and sexuality in relationship development Looks at multiple types of romantic relationships in emerging adulthood, including dating and cohabitation Explores both positive and negative relational processes Analyzes the latest and most important scholarship. The book opens with an introduction followed by a historical overview of the development of relationships. Next relationship development models are examined including the influence of social factors and the interaction of the partners involved. This volume examines how partners initiate romantic relationships, including infatuation, sexual attraction, and the impact of technology; how cohabitation affects the quality of the future of the relationship; and the individual, social, and circumstantial factors that predict stability or break-ups in romantic relationships. The book ends with an examination of the "dark side" of relationships, and suggestions for future research on romantic pairings. Intended as a supplement for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses in marriage and family, personal/close/intimate relationships, or interpersonal/family communication taught in human development and family studies, psychology, social work, sociology, communication, counseling and therapy, this book also appeals to researchers and practitioners interested in the romantic relationship processes.

Dating. Courtship. These words evoke great interest in nearly every reader. In Courtship, the authors explore courtship research, paying particular attention to differences between relationship development and deterioration and courtship development and deterioration. They describe factors that affect the later course of marriage, trace the historical roots of courtship in America, discuss various models of courtship that have guided research in this area for the past 40 years, examine circumstantial factors that discriminate between stable and unstable premarital relationships, explore the "dark side" of courtship--violence between dating partners--and reveal the processes involved in the dissolution phase of premarital relationships. The volume concludes with a look at the future of courtship as an institution and suggestions for further research. Provocative and thoughtfully presented, Courtship is directed to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students and professionals in psychology, communication, sociology, family studies, and social work. "This volume should have broad appeal for both students and professionals. It is clearly and carefully written, and draws on scholarship from several relevant disciplines. The authors do an outstanding job of summarizing extant research in a fashion that is digestible to undergraduate students, yet useful to the interested researcher. Cate and Lloyd have painted a coherent and provocative picture of a broad and difficult phenomenon. Their synthesis should be useful in helping to establish a sound agenda for future research on mating and dating." --ISSPR Bulletin "This volume of the Sage Series on Close Relationships provides a cogent, concise, and highly readable overview of courtship. Given the book's brevity, one is favorably surprised by the amount and depth of material covered. . . . Many insights are offered. . . . The inclusion of the darker side of dating relationships is a welcome addition. . . . Chapters . . . weave a scholarly narrative with such expertise that the reader may come away with the feeling of having read a well-written and well-documented historical novel. . . . The authors are to be commended for their articulate and insightful coverage of this aspect of relational life. Regardless of discipline, students of personal relationships would benefit greatly from this review." --Journal of Marriage & The Family