Contributors; Acknowledgements; 1. Coming together: a perspective on relationships across the life span Karen L. Fingerman and Frieder R. Lang; 2. Relationships as outcomes and contexts Toni C. Antonucci, Elizabeth S. Langfahl, and Hiroko Akiyama; 3. Child-parent relationships Peter Noack and Heike M. Buhl; 4. A dynamic ecological systems perspective on emotion regulation development within the sibling relationship context Victoria Hilkevitch Bedford and Brenda L. Volling; 5. Romantic and marital relationships Hans-Werner Bierhoff and Martina Schmohr; 6. Close relationships across the life span: toward a theory of relationship types Keiko Takahashi; 7. Friendship across the life span: reciprocity in individual and relationship development Rosemary Bliezner and Karen A. Roberto; 8. The consequential stranger: peripheral relationships across the life span Karen L. Fingerman; 9. Stress in social relationships: coping and adaptation across the life span Karen Rook, Dara Sorkin and Laura Zettel; 10. Social support and physical health across the life span: socioemotional influences Susan Turk Charles and Shahrzad Mavandadi; 11. Social cognition and social relationships Fredda Blanchard-Fields and Carolyn Cooper; 12. Dyadic fits and transactions in personality and relationships Franz J. Neyer; 13. Relational competence across the life span Robert O. Hansson, Eric L. Daleiden and Bert Hayslip, Jr; 14. Social motivation across the lifespan: a goal-resource-congruence model of social relationships Frieder R. Lang; 15. A lifetime of relationships mediated by technology Rebecca G. Adams and Michelle L. Stevenson; Indexes.