This chapter addresses intimate relationships of Black populations, as well as the sociocultural and economic contexts in which they are embedded. The authors underscore the heterogeneity of Black populations both in, and outside of, the United States. How racial discrimination is experienced, and the impact of that experience, differs across Black populations – underscoring heterogeneity. While some research suggests that racial discrimination contributes to negative relationship dynamics, other work suggests that when some individuals experience racial discrimination their partners engage in supportive behaviors. Despite declines and delays in marriage, many U.S.-born Blacks are still pursuing marital unions and are happily married (Skipper & Taylor, 2021; Skipper et al., 2021). This is likely a function of relational resilience, or even the Black Advantage Vision as many U.S. Black couples adapt and strive in spite of seemingly unsurmountable stressors over which they have little control.

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.

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.

This chapter advocates for Alter-Native Constitutionalism’s prioritisation of vernacular understandings of property and housing within South African law, challenging the colonial legacy of ‘lex nullius’ that undermines Black South Africans’ land claims. It critiques the uncommon law’s failure to recognise the Ntu’s historically-rooted, multigenerational land-based relationships and emphasises the interconnectedness of property and housing. The chapter uses Ntu Constitutionalism’s jurisprudential framework for constitutional and statutory interpretation set out in Chapter 6 to critique the ways in which, in its precedents, the Constitutional Court has interpreted the property and housing clauses to the near-complete exclusion of vernacular law’s layered property rights system. It argues that courts, as part of the state, should enforce these constitutional protections using Alter-Native Constitutionalism to uphold vernacular land rights. Further, arguing that the courts must prioritise equitable housing access over strict property rights, the chapter uses the Salem case’s limited ‘sharing model’ attempts vis-à-vis restitution to show that vernacular law’s ‘access-to-occupation’ could be feasibly extended throughout South African ‘property law’ in a manner that would reduce forced evictions and balance state, ‘owner’ and beneficial occupiers’ interests. The chapter thus illustratively pushes for judicial interpretations that better reflect ordinary people’s socio-economic realities, needs and sociocultural values, as well as constitutional commitments.

This coda takes the form of a sample judgment that rewrites Baron and Others v Claytile (Pty) Limited and Another [2017] to tangibly illustrate the promise of Alter-Native Constitutionalism. Contrasted with the real-life judgment issued by the Constitutional Court, which relied on liberal approaches, the Alter-Native ‘judgment’ gives willing courts the necessary tools to enforce the ‘property’ rights of ‘non-owners’ and thus highlights the opportunities for equitable solutions the Court has missed, including in its real-life judgment. Emphasizing the importance of robustly applying Ubu-Ntu (rather than the insipid ‘ubuntu’ that scholars and the Court have substituted for it) and applying Ntu Constitutionalism’s jurisprudential framework for constitutional and statutory interpretation developed earlier in the book, the opinion demonstrates existing possibilities for recognising shared rights and promoting housing as a relational, spatiotemporal ‘existence’. By reinterpreting constitutional and legislative provisions to respect indigenous onto-epistemological perspectives on land-as-housing, the Alter-Native opinion demonstrates a transformative approach to ‘property law’ that inherently critiques the Constitutional Court’s interpretation of the ‘property’ and ‘housing’ clauses largely to the exclusion of vernacular law. This Alter-Native opinion thus presents a literally embodied argument for the need for broadening restitution, addressing both enduring injustices and future possibilities over multiple generations.

Introducing the book’s third essential part on ‘property’, this chapter sets out Alter-Native Constitutionalism’s jurisprudential framework for constitutional and statutory interpretation informed by vernacular law and oriented towards the everyday, ordinary South African as the ‘reasonable’ person in law. It draws on ethnography and sociolinguistics, problematising the continuities in how democratic South African law treats ‘customary law’ consistently with colonial-apartheid. A SiSwati conversation with Make Ng’Gogo frames the chapter’s exploration of vernacular law’s indigenous ethical orientation, embodied in Ubu-Ntu, as it applies to guiding not only societal organisation but also land rights – emphasising human-centred values over individualistic property rights. By first examining indigenous normative relationships with land then translating their application into critique of Constitutional Court interpretive practices, the chapter advances an Alter-Native framework that represents a paradigm shift in constitutional interpretation, privileging Ubu-Ntu’s holistic world-sense. This framework advocates reinterpretation of dignity and rights under the Constitution, moving beyond Western legal principles toward a jurisprudence grounded in indigenous natural law and relational ethics. The chapter argues for South Africa’s Constitutional Court to adopt this indigenously transformative constitutional approach to interpretation, treating vernacular law as equally legitimate to European ‘common law’ and thereby making truly transformative socioeconomic outcomes more possible.

This chapter argues that the Afrobarometer survey findings indicating South Africans’ preference for housing over land are easily misunderstood. Supported by modern science, it emphasises human interconnectedness as evidenced and grounded in land-based relationships. The chapter therefore critiques the limited world-sense within which ‘property’ is conceived in Ramuhovhi and Malan and, instead, amalgamates vernacular, ‘(un)customary’, and ‘(un)common’ law to illustrate how relationships, ‘seen’ particularly through the spatiotemporal lens of Ubu-Ntu, might deepen our constitutional understanding of ‘property’. It thus shows how the concept of ‘house’ (beyond physical structure) – perceived in ‘vernacular time’, rather than Euromodernity’s ‘colonial time’ – equitably shapes ‘property’ rights, linking them to multigenerational ‘survivance’ and thereby integrating Ntu principles into contemporary legal interpretations. Hence, the chapter concludes the book by demonstrating how embracing the vernacular law conceptions of ‘human(e) existence’, ‘rights’ and ‘house’ would transform the sociolegal reality for South Africans by decolonising it and achieving sustainable socioeconomic change. Returning to encounters in Mbuzini, the chapter ends by highlighting young people’s understandings of Ubu-Ntu and ‘housing’ amidst colonial law’s afterlives and vernacular law’s continued erasure. It contends that true transformation demands respecting the country’s constitutional commitments by genuinely representing all South Africans’ diverse normative ideals.

This chapter sets the stage for the book by describing broad trends in family configuration before situating fathers in a policy context that targets and promotes their financial responsibility for their children. We first argue that the story of how fathers’ parenting matters for children’s development should be told in two parts: the “money story” and the “love story.” Next, we describe the best available data on the demographic characteristics of resident and nonresident fathers to explain how their parenting is associated with children’s vocabulary, academic achievement and social emotional development. We then describe theories of father involvement that have shaped some of the research that examines fathers’ emotional support. We conclude the chapter by making a case for the integration of the two stories of what it is to be a father to better support father and children. Finally, we offer suggestions for bringing these two stories together across disciplines.

Tilmann Habermas’s work about the influences of others on our life stories has been foundational for my own thinking, and generative for the field. In this piece, I consider some of the ways that the line between an intellectual life story and a personal one is not so sharply delineated, and the complexities of others’ impacts on our life stories through the intersections of both intellectual and personal encounters between Tilmann and myself. To begin, I ask how we shape one another’s autobiographical memory and life stories. And to end, I ask about the ways we might already be doing this that have been less well-studied.

Creative careers can complicate daily living. In this chapter, we talk about complications that arise in romantic and family relationships. Some people talk about the challenges of financial instability, others emphasize the need for selfishness and time to focus on creative work. Some discuss interactions between their creative work and parenting. Ultimately, compromise is key.

The 12-item Perceived Benefits of Thinness Scale (PBTS; Flatt et al., 2022)] assesses an individual’s beliefs about how being thinner would positively influence aspects of their life including their self-esteem, satisfaction, mood, relationships, and professional success. The PBTS can be administered online and/or in-person to adults and is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the PBTS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the PBTS has been found to have a single-factor structure within exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity support the use of the PBTS. Next, this chapter provides the PBTS items in their entirety, instructions for administration to participants, the item response scale, and the scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

The 14-item Body-Related Disclosure Scale (BRDS; Greer, Campione-Barr, & Lindell, 2015) can be administered in person or online to adolescents and young adults (ages 10-25 years) in the context of any close relationship (e.g., mother-child, father-child, siblings, friends, romantic partners) and is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the BRDS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the Body-Related Disclosure Scale has been found to have a 2-factor structure within confirmatory factor analyses to include a positively-valence sub-scale and a negatively-valanced subscale. Internal consistency reliability supports the use of the BRDS. Next, this chapter provides the BRDS items in their entirety, instructions for administering the BRDS to participants, the item response scale, and the scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

Social psychiatry focuses on the interpersonal and cultural contexts of mental disorder and mental wellbeing. Research in this area examines the relationship between psychiatric disorders and the social environment. This includes the consequences of positive or negative life events at the individual level, as well as broader themes – such as discrimination and inequality - at the societal level. This chapter aims to illustrate how research in social psychiatry has advanced our understanding of the role of social factors in the aetiology and management of mental disorders. We provide breakdowns of six high-impact research studies including summaries of background, methods, results, conclusions, strengths, and limitations. In addition, we provide some information about common pitfalls and methodological considerations that are specifically relevant to social psychiatry for novice researchers in this area, and our thoughts regarding future challenges and opportunities in this field.

How we create believable characters. Resisting the urge to decide exactly who your character is before you know who your story needs them to be. The interdependence of character and plot and the emotional journey of the character. Moving beyond ‘show; don’t tell’: the interaction between characters allows the reader to get to know characters by observation rather than instruction. Managing minor characters. Conflict, consistency and contradiction all have a part to play in plausible characterisation. Characters come from you but they’re not you: the importance of freeing ourselves as writers from ourselves as people.

The second empirical example of conceptualized peace presents a study of young people who were former high school restorative justice leaders. By presenting an example not explicitly related to peace, the chapter helps expand understanding the utility and applicability of the framework, as well as the methods that can be used with it. The research was a retrospective investigation of the role that their high school restorative justice experience played in these young people’s development. While they may not be representative of all students, their experiences and the impact these carry with them years later have value for thinking about restorative justice and development. Their understandings of restorative justice and the roles it has played in their lives speak to its potential to provide tools for internal peace, coping strategies for stress and interpersonal conflict, and opportunities to see themselves as able to promote peace in their immediate social circles and by taking on problematic systems.

This chapter establishes the foundation for network machine learning. We begin with network fundamentals: adjacency matrices, edge directionality, node loops, and edge weights. We then explore node-specific properties such as degree and path length, followed by network-wide metrics including density, clustering coefficients, and average path lengths. The chapter progresses to advanced matrix representations, notably degree matrices and various Laplacian forms, which are crucial for spectral analysis methods. We examine subnetworks and connected components, tools for focusing on relevant network structures. The latter half of the chapter delves into preprocessing techniques. We cover node pruning methods to manage outliers and low-degree nodes. Edge regularization techniques, including thresholding and sparsification, address issues in weighted and dense networks. Finally, we explore edge-weight rescaling methods such as z-score standardization and ranking-based approaches. Throughout, we emphasize practical applications, illustrating concepts with examples and code snippets. These preprocessing steps are vital for addressing noise, sparsity, and computational challenges in network data. By mastering these concepts and techniques, readers will be well-equipped to prepare network data for sophisticated machine learning tasks, setting the stage for the advanced methods presented in subsequent chapters.

Part I is an eclectic collection of social work stories from the field. It seeks to show how important stories are, as they fundamentally tell of situated experiences and how these shape our relationships towards others. Part I shows the different ways that stories might be told, and that every story has multiple threads, is told from a particular point of view, and is not always linear and with an ending. In other words, many stories are unfinished and therefore are partial stories. Part I helps us reflect deeply on social work practices that may have the potential to “give life” to others by creating an environment that supports and encourages individuals to-be and to-share aspects of themselves. Additionally, to disclose those thoughts, feelings, and actions that matter to them to significant others, especially in times of change. Part I suggests that an appropriate social work mindset is to try to see the true and the good, the better and the possible in each practice relationship and situation. This is undeniably challenging. More broadly, this part of the book illuminates social work in uncertain, ambiguous, chaotic, disrupted, and volatile times.

In the study approaches we have looked at, the main purpose of investigation has been to understand and quantify relationships – relationships between exposures and outcomes, or between interventions and effects. And, just like the common plot line of a romantic tale, in this chapter we will consider how we can work out if those relationships are the ‘real deal’. How do we know we have measured what we think we have (is this really love?) and how much of the effect we have measured is entirely due to the exposure or intervention (or just a holiday thing)?

The story of Shelley’s life is inextricably linked with the stories of the women who influenced his work, and of the children for whom he was responsible. This chapter explores the ways in which this superficially least domestic of men produced a body of work shaped in fundamental ways by his relationships with the women and children in his family, as well as by those with a small number of other women who existed beyond its boundaries. It traces Shelley’s relationships with Harriet Westbrook, Elizabeth Hitchener, Mary Godwin, Claire Clairmont, Teresa Viviani, and Jane Williams in and out of his biography and his poetry, arguing that although neither these women nor the children in their care could always live up to Shelley’s vision of ideal, uncircumscribed companionship, they were no less important to either his life or his art because of their complicated, flesh-and-blood reality.