This chapter presents an overview of recent trends and developments in research on close relationships. It is a sequel to the chapters that appeared in earlier editions of this Handbook (Perlman et al., 2018; Perlman & Duck, 2006) and thus reviews the developments in relationships research from 2016 to mid-2023. Drawing on data from a survey of authors of articles published in Personal Relationships and the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships and a bibliometric analysis of these papers, we discuss the scholars who relationship scientists perceive as eminent and who they feel are emerging as influential. We use these data to highlight the major theories, methodological trends, and substantive foci that have been the foundation of relationships research since 2016. Comparison with earlier versions of the chapter reveals stability in the field’s preoccupations but also demonstrates how it has responded to contextual factors within and outside of academia.

Romantic love seems to be a nearly universal phenomenon, appearing in every culture for which data are available and in every historical era. This chapter first reviews research on how ordinary people construe love. Then it turns to how researchers have understood and measured love, organizing its discussion around the theme of types of love. Next it covers the course of love with a focus on falling in love. It then reviews several approaches that have been particularly influential in specifically focusing on understanding the dynamics of romantic love, especially with regard to passionate love. It concludes with a brief review of the work on other kinds of love in relationships. The authors hope that this review has conveyed their view that the study of love is both important and a thriving scientific endeavor, offering both a solid foundation and vast opportunities for significant future work.

Couple conflict has received significant attention in couples research, chiefly because poorly managed conflict raises risk for a host of negative outcomes including relationship dissatisfaction, divorce, domestic violence, occupational impairment, and poor child well-being. Effective conflict management is a central target of couple therapy and relationship education. In this chapter, we define couple conflict, describe the frequency and common topics of conflict, and provide examples of how researchers measure conflict. We then describe different ways that couples manage conflict, highlighting effective and ineffective conflict management behaviors and how they affect relationship functioning. Next, we describe conflict and conflict management among historically underrepresented couples. Last, we present information on relationship interventions that target couple conflict and describe future directions for research on couple conflict.

Victims’ demands for reparations are epitomised as a non-violent resistance to the violence they have suffered. The chapter explores how victims resist state narratives, coercive tactics, and violence in their claims for reparations, reflecting on the long-term impact of such resistance. Drawing on interviews with over 100 victims across six case studies, the chapter develops three themes around resistance: social mobilisation; self-repair; and the struggle for reparations. It examines various forms of non-violent resistance, including bottom-up approaches, documentation of violations, and the creation of subalternate perspectives. The chapter also addresses the role of social movements in reparations, emphasizing the dynamic process of collective identity formation, grievance framing, and the negotiation of justice. In conclusion, the chapter underscores the importance of understanding reparations as a multi-faceted struggle involving legal, political, and social dimensions, and the need for continued advocacy and research to address the complexities and challenges faced by victims in their pursuit of redress.

Research has advanced our understanding of the role of self-disclosure in the initiation, development, maintenance, and ending of relationships. In this chapter, we review theoretical and empirical milestones in our understanding of self-disclosure, particularly its role in relationships. We show that research on self-disclosure has shifted from a focus on the individual to a focus on the interpersonal nature of disclosure processes. Self-disclosure occurs between people and triggers a cyclical process that is specific to a particular relationship with a particular partner. Self-disclosure processes fluctuate over time. They shape, and are shaped by, relationships. We propose that self-disclosure serves as a seismograph of relationship quality. It is essential in interdependent relationships and key to unraveling how people perceive the quality of their relationships. Throughout the chapter, we identify unanswered questions that offer promising avenues for future research.

This chapter is devoted to developing and clarifying one of the most unique and important constructs of attachment theory: the internal working models (IWMs) by which relationships influence other relationships and personality. We begin by describing how IWMs develop, discuss different definitions and conceptualizations of IWMs associated with different developmental stages, and then offer a new way of thinking about IWMs as both implicit and explicit representations that function at different levels of awareness. We then discuss factors that promote stability and change in IWMs, highlighting how earlier experiences with attachment figures may shape subsequent IWMs associated with other attachment figures. We next present a framework outlining the conditions under which IWMs associated with specific attachment figures earlier in life can become “activated” to influence how people think, feel, and/or behave with their current attachment figures. We conclude by proposing several promising directions for future research.

Social networks have always influenced the day-to-day interactions of people, and our chapter highlights the latest research on the significance of these noteworthy social ties in people’s personal relationships. We attend to both romantic relationships and friendship connections, focusing on themes of network effects in relationship formation, maintenance, and dissolution. The findings we review underline the notable ways in which the social environment shapes our closest connections and often strengthens them. We also discuss the extension of network science to investigate marginalized relationships, such as those of sexual minorities, and note the potential for social networks to have a “dark side” in which social connections become problematic. We then address emerging scholarship regarding the positive and negative links between COVID-19 and social networks. Finally, we consider future avenues for research on this notable topic.

This chapter focuses on the collaborative and participatory methodologies of the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative, an international, cross-sector partnership of survivors, scholars, artists, lawyers, museums, architects, community organisers, civil society organisations, and mental health professionals who are committed to documenting the history of the Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992), accompanying bottom-up commemoration and healing processes, and preventing future violence. Using Experiences and Memories of Arcatao (2024) as a case study, this chapter explores the collaborative documentation of victim names and the co-creation of local community history books as an alternative form of justice that meets the recommendations of the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador in a context of enduring impunity. The authors emphasise the long tradition of local community organizing and popular education in Chalatenango, as well as the role of international solidarity actors who contribute significant resources and technical support.

By understanding participation in transitional justice as the capacity of victims to exercise agency in addressing their needs, this chapter shows how victim mobilisation is a form of participation that can advance victims’ agendas independent of any formal process. Using the lens of critical victimology to both highlight and privilege the agency of victims of violations, we show how relatives of persons missing in Nepal’s armed conflict have successfully renegotiated their relationships with their families, community, and even local government, in ways that impact how they experience victimhood. This shows how collective action and empowerment can serve to drive social change in the everyday spaces that victims occupy in ways that can transform their lives, even though impunity remains institutionalised by the authorities. This reframes participation in transitional justice as something that can be realised largely independent of a formal process.

Research concerning the variety of close relationships adults maintain, initiate, cease, and lose during middle and later adulthood has been fast growing in recent decades. Much of the theoretical and empirical work in this field has aimed to overcome views of older age as a time of loss and decline, both individually and socially. Moreover, recent trends have focused on the increasingly diverse experiences of the aging population. This includes not only extended life expectancy – and, importantly, extended healthy life expectancy – but also demographic changes, including larger proportions of racial/ethnic minorities attaining older age; new cohorts of openly LGBTQ adults entering mid and later life, many of whom represent the first generation of same-sex married couples; and the phenomenon of “gray divorce” and romantic repartnering in the years beyond age 50. This chapter will cover both the history and foundations of research on close relationships in middle and later life, as well as these recent trends in the field, finishing with an eye toward future directions as both the aging population and our perceptions of it continue to change.

People form different types of relationships with others. One common, valued, type is a communal relationship. In communal relationships, people assume responsibility for one another’s welfare and give and seek responsiveness non-contingently. Here we review ways in which communal relational contexts shape people’s emotional lives. In communal relationships, giving and receiving non-contingent responsiveness is linked to positive emotion, whereas failure to do so or behavior indicative of following inappropriate norms (e.g., norms governing transactional relationships) leads to negative emotion. In addition, the presence of communal partners often reduces threat and enhances the intensity of positive and negative reactions to environmental stimuli. Communal contexts are associated with greater expression of emotions signaling one’s own needs (which partners sometimes socially reference as signs of their own needs) and with expressing more indicative of empathy and care for the partner. All these effects can feed back and strengthen communal relationships.

We examine family systems and family relationships. Using family systems theory (Cox & Paley, 1997, 2003; Minuchin, 1985), we focus on how families are viewed as a hierarchically organized system, comprised of smaller relationships (i.e., subsystems) such as parent–child relationships, embedded within larger systems such as extended families and their broader social ties. We organized the discussion of subsystems as follows: (a) Core subsystems, including relationships of romantic partners, coparenting alliance, parent–children, and siblings; and (b) Subsystems with broader social ties, in the form of extended family and/or intergenerational ties, including coparenting alliances in post-divorce or foster families as well as parents and parents-in-law relationships. We also consider these various subsystems within and across diverse families and family contexts, attending to aspects of gender, family structures, income, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, cultures, and national origins. We end with suggestions for future research (e.g., combining the lenses of family systems with intersectionality).

Relationship maintenance scholars have long attempted to understand the processes by which partners foster relationship growth. They have done so by focusing on defining and explaining key maintenance strategies that serve to initiate and preserve romantic relationships. In this chapter, we provide a brief history of the relationship maintenance literature. Then we identify the key theoretical contributions to the current understanding of relationship maintenance and discuss recent theoretical developments and known correlates. We conclude the chapter by highlighting the need to diversify and expand the maintenance literature by identifying possible avenues for future inquiry and proposing ways to integrate work across disciplines.

Reparations are a key mechanism for delivering justice to victims and survivors of armed conflicts. The first generation of victim engagement was marked by demands for reparations from state authorities, making them a core element of post-war justice. This chapter examines how the nature of a past conflict shapes the conditions for victim engagement in reparations. It is shown that social classifications of victim groups that arose during or prior to conflict act as a moderating factor, influencing who is deemed eligible for compensation. However, these classifications are not fixed; victims and survivors can actively reshape them through transitional justice processes. This chapter examines how social classifications shape reparation policies by analysing three case studies – Guatemala, Timor-Leste, and Northern Ireland – each representing a distinct type of conflict. It explores the opportunities and constraints victims face in articulating and securing compensation claims, highlighting how these are influenced by evolving social classifications.

The notion of truth is a powerful one within transitional justice, and truth-telling and truth-seeking are considered to be a necessary part of any justice pursuit. Also in the US, official government actors are creating truth commissions (or truth commission-like processes) in order to acknowledge and address a wide range of violent and discriminatory contexts, both historical and present-day. This chapter explores two such truth commissions operating at the sub-national level, namely in the states of Maryland and California. Drawing from participatory scholarship, the chapter evaluates these examples and highlights how current and future truth processes can better conceptualise and implement victim participation in order to have deeper engagement and impact with affected communities. Examining these efforts around agency and empowerment can shed light on broader developments around formalised participation, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the second generation of victim engagement in transitional justice practices in the US.