To What Extent Can Close Relationships Be Considered a Personal, Private Matter or Should Social Psychologists Engage with Aspects of Society in Order to Provide an Adequate Understanding? Make Use of One of the

To what extent can close relationships be considered a personal, private matter or should social psychologists engage with aspects of society in order to provide an adequate understanding?   Make use of one of the interrogative themes in your discussion.

This essay will use the model of the diversity of family relationships to demonstrate the processes that social psychologists employ to study the complex intricacies from the social psychoanalytical and social cognitive perspectives of close relationships in sibling relationships and couples.   It will acknowledge the conflicted psyche in dynamic relation with the external world in the social psychoanalytical perspective and the individual as an “information processor” within their social world from a cognitive social perspective, and discuss whether this is as a result of individual choice and agency indicating autonomy, or the societal pressures experienced and structures or forces of society that influence human behaviours.   After reading the research papers, my inclination is to agree with Steve Duck suggestion (1999, cited in Sclater, 2007) that when considering close relationships it is necessary to take account of a multiplicity of factors in order to be able to make an evaluation.   Close relationships are both formed by the individual as well as the social world around them and each is interwoven in their creation.

The ability to form and maintain close personal relationships is a fundamental part of human existence.   From the moment we are born, our family generally become the most important influence on our future emotional and physical development into adults.   The people we come into contact with during our developmental years, our friends, teachers, relatives and other social contacts will all contribute to sculpt the mature adults we will eventually become.   The close relationships that we have throughout our lives can be complex however, and don’t always fit in with the normative views of society... [continues]

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