A relationship is normally viewed as a connection between two individuals, such as a romantic or intimate relationship, or a parent-child relationship. Individuals can also have relationships with groups of people, such as the relation between a pastor and his congregation, an uncle and a family, or a mayor and a town. Finally, groups or even nations may have relations with each other, though this is a much broader domain than that covered under the topic of interpersonal relationships. See such articles as international relations for more information on associations between groups. Most scholarly work on relationships focuses on romantic partners in pairs or dyads. These intimate relationships are, however, only a small subset of interpersonal relationships.
All relationships involve some level of interdependence. People in a relationship tend to influence each other, share their thoughts and feelings, and engage in activities together. Because of this interdependence, anything that changes or impacts one member of the relationship will have some level of impact on the other member.[1] The study of interpersonal relationships involves several branches of social science, including such disciplines as sociology, psychology, anthropology, and social work.
Intimate relationships play a central role in our overall human experience (Miller, Perlman & Brehm, 2007). Humans have a universal need to belong which is satisfied when intimate relationships are formed (Perlman, 2007). Intimate relationships consist of the people that we are attracted to, whom we like and love, romantic and sexual relationships, and those who we marry and provide emotional and personal support (Miller et al., 2007). Intimate relationships provide people with a social network of people that provide strong emotional attachments and fulfill our universal needs of belongingness and the need to be cared for (Miller et al., 2007).
The systematic study of intimate relationships is a relatively new area of research within the field of social psychology that has emerged within the last few decades (Miller et al. 2007). Although the systematic study of intimate relationships is fairly recent, social thought and analysis of intimate relationships dates back to early Greek philosophers (Miller et al. 2007). Early scholarly studies were also interested in intimate relationships but were limited to dyads or small groups of people in the public and narrowly examined behaviours such as competing and cooperation, negotiation and bargaining and compliance and resistance (Miller et al., 2007).
Physical intimacy is characterized by romantic or passionate love and attachment, or sexual activity.
Love is an important factor in physical and emotional intimate relationships. Though the term is notoriously difficult to define, any thoughtful inquiry into the subject will show it to be qualitatively, not only quantitatively, different than liking, and the difference is not merely in the presence or absence of sexual attraction. According to one analysis,[citation needed] love in relationships is divided into two types: passionate and companionate. Passionate love is intense longing, and is often accompanied by physiological arousal (shortness of breath, rapid heart rate). Companionate love is affection and a feeling of intimacy and is not necessarily accompanied by physiological arousal.
People who are in an intimate relationship with one another are often called a couple, especially if the members of that couple have ascribed some degree of permanency to their relationship. Such couples often provide the emotional security that is necessary for them to accomplish other tasks, particularly forms of labor/work.
An example of a ternary or triadic relation (i.e., between three individuals) is: "X was-introduced-to Y by Z", where (X,Y,Z) is a 3-tuple of persons; for example, "Beatrice Wood was introduced to Henri-Pierre Roché by Marcel Duchamp" is true, while "Karl Marx was introduced to Friedrich Engels by Queen Victoria" is false.
The variable k giving the number of "places" in the relation, 3 for the above example, is a non-negative integer (zero, one, two, ...), called the relation's arity, adicity, or dimension. A relation with k places is variously called a k-ary, a k-adic, or a k-dimensional relation. Relations with a finite number of places are called finite-place or finitary relations. It is possible to generalize the concept to include infinitary relations between infinitudes of individuals, for example infinite sequences; however, in this article only finitary relations are discussed, which will from now on simply be called relations.
Since there is only one 0-tuple, the so-called empty tuple ( ), there are only two zero-place relations, one for the property "is a 0-tuple", and one for its negation ("is not a 0-tuple"). One-place relations are called unary relations. For instance, any set (such as the collection of Nobel laureates) can be viewed as a collection of individuals having some property (such as that of having been awarded the Nobel prize). Two-place relations are called binary relations or dyadic relations. The latter term has historic priority. Binary relations are very common, given the ubiquity of relations such as:
A k-ary relation, k ≠ 2, is a straightforward generalization of a binary relation.
Terms for partners in intimate relationships include:
Miller, R. S., Perlman, D., & Brehm, S. S. (2007). Intimate Relationships (4th ed.). Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill.
Monroe, W. S. (1898). Discussion and reports. Social consciousness in children. Psychological Review, 15, 68-70.
Perlman, D. (2007). The best of times, the worst of times: The place of close relationships in psychology and our daily lives. Canadian Psychology, 48, 7-18.
Vangelisti, A. L., & Perlman, D. (2006). The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
