This chapter examines the discourse around Faretta waivers in capital cases. Under the US law, criminal defendants, even in capital cases, may decline assistance of counsel and represent themselves at trial as long as their choice is made intelligently and knowingly with ‘eyes open’, similar to the legal standard applied in Miranda decisions. Despite their significant impact on trial fairness, the language of Faretta warnings has not received sufficient attention. By analyzing written Faretta warnings and hearings discussing defendants’ decisions in a sample of California capital cases, this chapter shows that, as in Miranda, linguistic complexity and ritualistic approach to checking comprehension may inhibit defendants’ understanding of their legal options. In both waiver contexts, complex closed questions lead to insufficient assurance of laypersons’ true comprehension of legal waivers, obstructing defendants’ access to justice and reducing the reliability of the proceedings. This initial study recommends further interdisciplinary research on the discourse and practices of Faretta warnings to guide improvements and enhance truly informed choices.

The current chapter focuses on the development of adolescents’ relationships with parents, friends, and romantic partners, and their role in youth’s psychosocial adjustment. The chapter describes how relationships with parents in adolescence go through a period of transition toward a more egalitarian and reciprocal relationship, with temporary decreases in connectedness and increases in conflict in the process. Adolescents’ relationships with friends become more supportive and acquire a more optimal balance between intimacy and respect for each other’s individual needs over the course of adolescence. Positive experiences of adolescents in relationships with parents and friends predict healthy romantic functioning and satisfaction later in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Romantic involvement and relationship quality typically progresses towards increased attachment and intimacy functions in late adolescence and young adulthood. Satisfactory romantic relationships and a healthy sexual development tend to go hand-in-hand. High-quality relationships with parents, friends, and romantic partners are typically associated with positive socioemotional outcomes.

At the end of the Victorian era, the Scot Harry Panmure Gordon and the American John Pierpont (J. P.) Morgan were among the very richest men in their respective countries. They were friends with shared business interests and a passion for Collies. Gordon had a long career with dogs, serving as president of the Scottish Kennel Club, which promoted native breeds. Morgan acquired many of his Collies from Britain, often bought on Gordon’s recommendation. What contemporaries termed the ‘Gordon–Morgan confederacy’ dominated the breed’s classes at shows on both sides of the Atlantic for a while. This influence was ended by a political rival of Morgan, Samuel Untermyer, whose Collies outclassed Morgan’s at East Coast shows.

In this chapter, we review and integrate the literature on friendships and acquaintanceships in adulthood. We begin with a broad perspective on friends and acquaintances by considering them as members of a larger social network, with friends as part of the inner layers and acquaintances in the outer layers. Then we review the literature focused on friendships, including their life course (formation, maintenance, and endings). Most friendships begin as acquaintances, but not all acquaintances become friends. In a third section we focus on the diverse types of acquaintances, factors associated with how many acquaintances people have, and the unique needs met by acquaintances. Friends and acquaintances have influences on many areas of people’s lives including their romantic relationships and their health and well-being, which are issues also discussed in this chapter.

Mary Tealby founded the world’s first dogs’ home in Holloway, London, in 1861. The Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs, now Battersea Dogs’ Home, became a model for dog rescue homes across the country. It gave new expression and material form to the growing concern with animal welfare, first seen in the creation of the (Royal) Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals in 1824. With dogs, the new sensibility expressed the changing status of family pets and the emotional investment in man’s and woman’s best friend. As in the different attitudes to the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor, the Home differentiated between valued pets, expected to be rehomed, and valueless curs. It took responsibility for disposing of London’s ownerless, threatening strays.

Research on sex in relationships has proliferated in recent years, yielding valuable insights about sexuality in different types of relationships. In this chapter, we highlight recent work that has strengthened our understanding of couples’ everyday sexual experiences and their links to relational and broader well-being. We review how sexual experiences are shaped by individual differences (e.g., attachment orientation) and by the interplay of both romantic partners. We further highlight how the field has adapted to societal changes in relationships (e.g., consensual non-monogamy, casual sex, technology). Although existing research has discovered many important findings, much of it is limited in its generalizability to diverse populations beyond Western, monogamous, and cisgender man–woman couples. To address this oversight, we offer many minor but meaningful adjustments researchers can make to help ensure their measures and theories are inclusive, thereby helping to ensure future research on sex in relationships is representative of a broader population.

Social relationships are not only linked to emotional well-being, but also significantly associated with physical health. Reviewing the epidemiological and experimental body of research reveals evidence of directional and potentially causal associations between social connection and health and longevity. This is consistent with theoretical approaches to social relationships including attachment, social baseline, social network, and social support theory, all of which identify social relationships as vital to health and well-being. Theoretical models further conceptualize how it is that social relationships influence health. The growing scientific evidence documents some of the biological and behavioral pathways involved. While the evidence on the associations between social relationships and health is robust, the literature is uneven pointing to the need for further research on the complex nature of relationship quality and tech-based social connection.

Relationship science spans multiple disciplines of inquiry, ranging from neuroscience to demography, and is a dynamic enterprise, rich with ongoing discovery. The field’s breadth and pace thus present both challenges and opportunities to those who introduce it to others. This chapter draws on surveys and interviews of instructors to consider their choices of the topics they teach, comparing the content of relationships courses from one discipline to another. Substantial similarities and disciplinary distinctiveness are both found to exist. Then, we focus on the partnerships between teachers and their students, examining how specific relationship processes (such as self-disclosure) and qualities of instructors (such as empathy and immediacy) contribute to student engagement and learning. We also address new challenges in the teaching of relationship science that include the remote nature of online instruction, the increasing diversity of our students, and the emergence of generative artificial intelligence. Finally, the value of relationships courses to the students who take them is assessed.

The first sheepdog trial was held on the estate of Richard Lloyd Price in 1873. Ironically, he was more committed to field trials, where gundogs competed against each other to find and retrieve shot gamebirds. As a founding member of the newly formed Kennel Club, he willingly helped with its newest venture, which tested shepherds and their Collies. He was just twenty-one years old when he first entered dogs into shows and remained active in canine affairs for fifty years.

This chapter provides an overview of major empirically supported approaches to treating relationship distress among committed couples based upon criteria proposed by Chambless and Hollon (1998). Based on these criteria, we discuss behavioral couple therapy and its derivatives, including cognitive behavioral couple therapy and integrative behavioral couple therapy; emotionally focused couple therapy, and insight-oriented couple therapy. Each approach’s underlying theory and empirical support are described. We also note the development of a trans-theoretical model emphasizing central factors across theoretical approaches. This chapter also examines theoretical and empirical work on couple interventions beyond treatment of general distress to applications with specific, difficult-to-treat relationship problems, such as intimate partner violence (IPV). We also review couple-based interventions for individual problems, with an overview of some empirically-supported conjoint treatments for psychopathology. In addition, we address the importance of ensuring that interventions are sensitive and appropriate for couples traditionally underrepresented in empirical studies of couples (e.g., older couples, same-sex couples). Finally, we briefly discuss teletherapy and internet-based interventions to assist couples.