ABSTRACT
How do people develop in their important relationships, and how do two people come together to form a new, close relationship? These two questions should be central to the study of socioemotional development, but no framework or method has been available for analyzing development of people’s relationships to answer these questions. Instead, theory and research have focused primarily on continuities across time, such as stability with age in attachment, relationship themes, and relationship models (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990; Greenberg, Cicchetti, & Cummings, 1990; Horowitz, 1987; Luborsky & Crits-Christoph, 1990; Shaver & Hazan, 1992).
