ABSTRACT
Personality development can be viewed as evolving from a complex dialectic transaction between two fundamental developmental processes: (a) the development of increasingly stable, enduring, and mutually satisfying interpersonal relationships; and (b) the development of a differentiated, consolidated, stable, realistic, essentially positive, and integrated selfdefinition or identity (Blatt, 1990, 1991; Blatt & Blass, 1990, 1992; Blatt & Shichman, 1983). This view of personality development provides an opportunity to appreciate more fully the important role that interpersonal relationships play in personality development, from the infant's early dependence on his or her mother to the establishment of mature, mutually satisfying, reciprocal, intimate relationships in adulthood. Although most approaches to personality development agree that the individual comes into being through interaction with significant others throughout the life cycle, many theories of personality development usually focus primarily on only one of the two dimensions of this developmental process - either on identity or relatedness.
