Although many of the marriages have ended since the beginning of the study, this type of relationship study allows researchers to track marriages from start to finish by conducting follow-up interviews with the participants in order to determine which factors are associated with marriages that last and which with those that do not.
Evidence also points to the role of a number of contextual factors that can impact intimate relationships.
Poor skills in developing intimacy can lead to getting too close too quickly; struggling to find the boundary and to sustain connection; being poorly skilled as a friend, rejecting self-disclosure or even rejecting friendships and those who have them.
Psychological consequences of intimacy problems are found in adults who have difficulty in forming and maintaining intimate relationships.
Terri Orbuch and Joseph Veroff (2002) monitored newlywed couples using self-reports over a long period (a longitudinal study).
Participants are required to provide extensive reports about the natures and the statuses of their relationships.
There were limited studies done on children's friendships, courtship and marriages, and families in the 1930s but few relationship studies were conducted before or during World War II.
In the years following Monroe's study, very few similar studies were done.
However, this degradation can be softened (according to their 120 heterosexual couple Chicago sample) by undertaking a reappraisal writing task every four months. The study reports three distinct findings showing how unhealthy habits are promoted in long-term intimate relationships: through the direct bad influence of one partner, through synchronicity of health habits, and through the notion of personal responsibility.
Over 2,300 years ago, interpersonal relationships were being contemplated by Aristotle. Aristotle believed that by nature humans are social beings.
Relationships based on virtue are built on an attraction to the others' virtuous character.
Aristotle also suggested that relationships based on virtue would be the longest lasting and that virtue-based relationships were the only type of relationship in which each partner was liked for themselves.
As a result, environmental factors are also understood to contribute heavily to the strength of intimate relationships.