Re. Sanders, FIND YOUR PARTNER AND DO-SI-DO - THE FORMATION OF PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SOCIAL BEINGS, Journal of social and personal relationships, 14(3), 1997, pp. 387-415
Personal relationships have generally been studied from the perspectiv
e that the persons involved are psychological beings who are drawn tog
ether as they come to know, value, and share their respective inner qu
alities and experiences. However, it is also possible to examine relat
ionships from the perspective that the persons involved are social bei
ngs who are drawn together as they each come to fi nd the other's ways
of participating in communal life to be attractive and compatible. Fr
om the latter perspective, an established, committed relationship betw
een two social beings would consist of an effective partnership in a v
ariety of arenas of communal life because their respective ways of par
ticipating are mutually facilitative. Comparison of the two perspectiv
es on empirical grounds indicates that they are surprisingly congruent
, and that integrating them is more productive than trying to promote
one over the other. This comparison also indicates that communication
plays multiple roles in the process of engaging in a personal relation
ship, and is suggestive about how much we still need to find out about
the lived experience of persons in relationships, and how research mi
ght proceed in that regard.