Human Relationships

The first edition of this book quickly established itself as a classic introduction to the study and the understanding of human relationships, an essential supplementary text to existing textbooks in social psychology, communication and other fields concerned with social and interpersonal behaviour.

In this new revised, updated and expanded edition, Steve Duck once more presents a thorough, lucid and highly readable introductory textbook analyzing the world of human relationships as we experience them in our daily lives. The book has been updated to take account of the most recent research, enlarged to reflect the current expansion of the field and revised to present a new framework focusing on the role of communication in relationships. This second edition also contains an additional chapter on relationships and the law, examining the various ways relationships are recognized in law and in turn have hidden effects upon its workings.

Human Relationships addresses such topics as attraction, love, friendship and our experiences of shyness, jealousy and loneliness. It considers how and why relationships are established, sustained and sometimes break down. It looks at families, at how children learn about and manage their own relationships and at how people's health and well-being are profoundly affected by the nature of the relationships in which they are embedded. In exploring such `ordinary' but fundamental themes, it convincingly shows how a sound understanding of social and interpersonal behaviour must be grounded in an understanding of the workings of everyday relationships in daily life.