Relationships and the self-concept

Progress in the study of relationships has depended in part on the recognit ion that relationships have properties not relevant to interactions or to:t he behavior of individuals, and may require additional principles of explan ation. This has led to an emphasis on relationships as linking individuals. In this article we argue that relationship processes occur in the heads of individuals, with the participants having their own idiosyncratic views of the relationship as well as a shared one. The relationship is both affecte d by and affects the self-concepts of the participants, so that the influen ces of the self-concept may be critical fbr understanding the properties an d dynamics of relationships. Furthermore, consideration of the self-concept can assist in the integration of different but not necessarily incompatibl e explanations for the same relationship phenomena.