We draw on the sociological theories of the “liability of newness” and the “liability of adolescence” to generate new insights into relationship evolution. First, we show how a new relationship during its “honeymoon” exhibits a unique constellation of two conditions, namely information asymmetry and forbearance. Next, we explain how a relationship evolves along two processes that involve passive learning and decay, respectively. In themselves, these processes will move a relationship towards a long-term “transactional” state and possibly termination, but the processes can also be actively shaped using governance mechanisms of various kinds. The latter, however, requires a nuanced account of types of governance mechanisms and the particular conditions they are intended to induce. We consider how the general mechanisms of (1) incentives and (2) information sharing can be deployed in standardized or customized fashions, respectively. Next, we suggest how different manifestation of governance mechanisms impact a relationship’s underlying evolutionary processes and evolved relationship states. In general, our framework represents a new perspective on relationship evolution; one that involves the purposeful management of initial conditions and their related evolutionary processes.

我们利用“新事物的责任”和“青春期的责任”的社会学理论来对关系演变产生新的见解。首先，我们展示了“蜜月”期间的新关系如何表现出两个条件的独特星座，即信息不对称和宽容。接下来，我们将解释关系如何沿着分别涉及被动学习和衰减的两个过程演变。就其本身而言，这些流程会将关系推向长期的“交易”状态并可能终止，但也可以使用各种治理机制来积极塑造这些流程。然而，后者需要对治理机制的类型及其旨在引发的特定条件进行细致入微的说明。我们考虑如何分别以标准化或定制的方式部署 (1) 激励和 (2) 信息共享的一般机制。接下来，我们建议治理机制的不同表现如何影响关系的潜在演化过程和演化关系状态。总的来说，我们的框架代表了关系演变的新视角；一种涉及对初始条件及其相关进化过程进行有目的的管理。