Health, emotion, and relationships

Answers to questions at the interface of health, emotion, and relationships (HER) are critical for intervening in medical and social ills ranging from heart disease to aggression. The articles in this special issue report on recent research that targets the HER interface and summarize talks that were given at the 2011 mini-conference of the International Association for Relationship Research held at the University of Arizona. The articles present interdisciplinary approaches for tackling the complexity of HER processes across different relationships, levels of analysis, health domains, and methodologies. The papers report on many new findings but also highlight unanswered (and unasked) questions. In doing so, this work points to areas that are ripe for future cross-disciplinary discussion and investigation.