ABSTRACT
One of the most important aspects of a close relationship concerns the extent to which each participant is committed to it. Commitment plays a role in every relationship in which the successive interactions are not due to mere chance. In an elementary form it can be seen even in relatively trivial relationships, such as loyalty to one of a number of alternative bank cashiers. Efforts by a manufacturer to maintain a relationship with a retailer, or by a retailer to maintain a relationship with a customer, involve commitment. Indeed, commitment may also be present in relationships with an enemy or rival, in that rivals may know exactly how to irritate each other, and maintain their relationships in order to provide opportunities for so doing. But commitment becomes of special importance in relationships from which the participants could opt out but in fact see themselves as a dyad, differentiated from other dyads—friends, lovers and married couples: it then implies incorporating part of the self into the relationship—or the relationship into the self. It is with such relationships that most research has been conducted.
