Using the Social Relations Model to Understand Relationships

Relationships are important to everyone. They provide people with the most rewarding and exasperating moments in life. They can drive people to ecstasy as well as to despair. Despite, or perhaps because of, their importance , very little is known about them. In this chapter, a new approach to the study of relationships, called the Social Relations Model (Kenny & La Voie, 1984; Malloy & Kenny , 1986), is described. This approach is beginning to provide a number of new insights into relationships (Clark & Reis, 1988) . Although the model is highly mathematical, it is relatively simple to understand. Also, although it is a methodology, it does have embedded within it a theoretical orientation to social relationships that is developed in this chapter.