Introduction to Special Issue: Reciprocity and Bidirectionality in Parent-Child Relationships: New Approaches to the Study of Enduring Issues

Abstract

A long history of research on parent-child relationships has been premised on the assumption that parents socialize their children to a greater degree than children socialize their parents. Increasingly, however, it has-been recognized that parent-child relationships are co-constructed and are embedded in a social matrix that is defined by patterns of reciprocal influence over time. This Special Issue of Journal of Social and Personal Relationships provides a sampling of the energetic work currently being conducted in the parent-child relationships field that bears directly on issues of reciprocity and bidirectionality. Our goal in assembling this collection of papers is to focus greater attention on the centrality of bidirectional concepts in current research and thinking about parentchild relationships in particular, and interpersonal relationships more generally.