Relationships: From Social Cognition to Critical Social

The main aim of this chapter is not to provide detailed coverage of the literature on human relationships but rather to demonstrate how the assumptions of social cognitive psychology have both shaped that literature and our cultural understanding of relationships. The intention is also to challenge these assumptions and, in so doing, to demonstrate the process of criticality at work. To achieve these aims, two example topics from the relationship literature—exchange theories of relationship dynamics and love—are used to illustrate how relationships can be understood very differently within the context of a critical social psychology.