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8 - Divorce and Postdivorce Relationships

from Part II - Developmental Arc of Relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2018

By
Marilyn Coleman ,
Lawrence Ganong  and
Sarah N. Mitchell
Edited by
Anita L. Vangelisti  and
Daniel Perlman
Anita L. Vangelisti
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Daniel Perlman
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
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Summary

This chapter synthesizes current knowledge about the neuroscience of relationships. Although there are challenges to forming successful relationship, this chapter begins with the premise that humans, like other species, are wired to form, and benefit from, social connections. The chapter defines social neuroscience and discusses the research methods neuroscientists use. In recent decades social neuroscientists have begun contributing to a better understanding of the neurobiological substrates of close relationships (e.g., by unraveling their specific networks in the human brain). Early research focused on love including not only specifying what brain areas are recruited during a behavioral task, but also, specifying when and in what specific combinations they are activated. Social neuroscientists have also examined types of love and types of social rejection (e.g., loneliness as well as social and romantic rejection). The chapter concludes with current challenges facing social neuroscientists and directions their work could profitably pursue.
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships , pp. 106 - 116
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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