DISCIPLINES AT PARALLEL PLAY

Comparing relationship researchers to children engaging in parallel play, the author questions the popular impression that the field of personal relationships is interdisciplinary. The term 'interdisciplinary' is contrasted with 'multidisciplinary'. Being interdisciplinary requires researchers to integrate different perspectives on the same problem from more than one discipline. Being multidisciplinary requires only that researchers representing different disciplines be brought together and work on separate problems relevant to their own disciplines. Scanning a sample of the relationship literature, the author concludes that the field is more multidisciplinary than interdisciplinary. It is a field that approaches similar problems from different perspectives, but rarely integrates disparate work into a cohesive whole. With concrete suggestions, the author encourages relationship researchers from different disciplines to foster closer working relationships with one another in order to integrate their perspectives.