Regulation and management of social relationship across the life course: A development perspective

The article addresses mechanisms and processes underlying the lifespan ontogeny of relationship regulation. Six propositions on the lifespan development of personal relationships are presented. From birth to death individuals are active agents, who co-regulate the structure, function, and quality of their social worlds in accordance with their age-specific needs and resources. Strategies of two general domains of life-long relationship regulation are discussed, that is, self-regulation and other-regulation in social relationships. An illustration of relationship regulation pertains to the life-course trajectories of two social orientations, that is social-agency orientation and belongingness orientation. The interplay and dynamic between these two relational orientierations also determine an individual's interpersonal functioning and social embeddedness over the life course. It is suggested that individuals benefit differently from assuming different orientations in their social relationship depending on their respective developmental resources.