Combining elements derived from Sullivan’s interpersonal theory, attachment theory, and cognitive theory, Wyndol Furman uses a behavior systems orientation in research involving peer and romantic relationships (e.g., Furman & Wehner, 1994).
A “behavior system” is a goal-corrected partnership functioning to maintain a tie between the individual and his or her partners. Four such systems are believed to dominate interpersonal relationships—attachment, caretaking, affiliative, and sexual/reproductive—each having a different degree of importance in different developmental epochs. The attachment system, for example, dominates parent–child relations during the early years but functions in reconfigured and less prominent ways in peer and romantic relationships during adolescence.
The affiliative system, encompassing play, cooperation, collaboration, and reciprocity, appears initially in parent–child relations but comes to dominate relations with compeers in childhood
(Weiss, 1986). Romantic relationships during adolescence incorporate both of these systems, but caretaking and sexual/reproductive systems are added.The individual’s cognitive representations or “views” of these systems parallel behavioral functioning and reflect the developmental changes across childhood and adolescence that mark the systems themselves.
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