Book excerpt: This long-awaited fourth edition has the same goal as the preceding editions: to understand families in terms of the kinds of interaction through which family life is constructed. The changes in the family as an institution have influenced these processes, just as they have influenced the ways we understand and write about them. But even in these "postmodern" circumstances, an underlying premise of the volume is that two partners establish a family because they have selected each other as distinctively meaningful to one another. They will affirm, modify, elaborate, or retreat from various aspects of the relationship through interaction over time and in changing circumstances. This volume contains the best available interdisciplinary work on the social psychology of the family. More than half of the selections are new to this edition, which incorporates a variety of theoretical and research perspectives that provide the reader with a range of authoritative and up-to-date sources on the family and interpersonal relations. The newer forms of family organization that have emerged in the more recent literature - specifically, single-parent families, stepfamilies, and families of gay and lesbian domestic partners - are included. Authors have been drawn from a variety of disciplines, including sociology, communication, family studies, human development, psychology, anthropology, and social work.