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6 - Relationship Initiation and Growth

from Part II - Developmental Arc of Relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2018

Anita L. Vangelisti
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Daniel Perlman
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
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Summary

This chapter examines the implications of gender for friendship and romantic relationships across the lifespan. We not only examine the contribution of biological sex but also the contribution of gender-related traits for these relationships in childhood, early adulthood, adulthood, and older age. When we examine biological sex, we discuss sex similarities as well as sex differences, typically finding that similarities outweigh differences. We discuss the nature of friendship and romantic relationships at each phase of the lifespan as well as present research on both the positive (e.g., intimacy) and negative (e.g., conflict) aspects of those relationships. Our review of the friendship literature not only addresses traditional same-sex friendship but also includes discussions of cross-sex friendship and friends-with-benefits relationships. For romantic relationships, we discuss the implications of gender not only for their development but also their maintenance and termination through separation/divorce and widowhood. We discuss how sex differences in relationships can be understood from both a gender-role socialization perspective (i.e., men are socialized to be agentic, women are socialized to be communal) as well as differential status (i.e., men’s higher status compared to that of women) and emphasize the importance of social constructionism for understanding research in this area.
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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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