Preface

Summary

When people think about personal relationships, questions about stability and change jump into mind. An individual's behavior in current relationships is often explained by invoking similar relationships from the past. Feelings about one's present-day relationships reflect not so much current circumstances as the manner in which those circumstances are perceived to have improved or deteriorated. Hopes, fears, fantasies, and goals for future relationships tend not to be conceived in a vacuum, but rather are couched in terms of the present and the past. Among the most common questions that we, as relationship researchers, get from our acquaintances and students are questions about how to avoid repeating the mistakes and misfortunes of past relationships in subsequent relationships (which probably accounts for the widespread appeal of this same question in popular media).

The compelling interest in questions about stability and change evidenced by the lay public is matched by researchers interested in the scientific study of personal relationships. It is not surprising, therefore, that when the International Society for the Study of Personal Relationships decided to sponsor a series of edited volumes on timely, cuttingedge theory and research, continuity and change in personal relationships were identified as a preeminent issue. The chapters collected in this volume testify to the intellectual vigor with which scholars have sought to unravel the complex processes and associations that contribute to relationship stability and change.