This article evaluates the present state of research on personal relationships on the basis of a selection of recently published books. Afler shortly sketching the historical development of socio-psychological research on interpersonal attraction and relationships, eight volumes dealing with relationships are reviewed and salient conceptual, methodological, and theoretical trends in recent research are discussed.
During recent years, personal relationships have become a popular and central topic of research within social psychology and a meeting place of researchers coming from such diverse disciplines as social, developmental, and clinical psychology, sociology, ethology, cultural anthropology, and communication research. This trend is well documented in a couple of recently published books, in the publication of an interdisciplinary Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (starting in 1984), and the forthcoming Sage Series in Personal Relationships edited by Duck and Perlman (in press).
The present article aims at portraying the current state of relationship research, documenting some recent trends, assessing the strengths and shortcomings, and pointing out some potentially fruitful directions for future research. It is based on a selection of recently published books including Hinde (1979), Duck and Gilmour (1981a,b,c), Duck (1982), Kelley et al. (1983), Foot, Chapman and Smith (1980), and Asher and Gottman (1981). Several other relevant books, some of which may well have influenced the present author's assessment of relationship research, shall also be mentioned here: