The Misconception: In romance, opposites attract.
The Truth: When it comes to personality, you want someone a lot like you, and when opposites do attract the relationships often fall apart.
Grab your local newspaper and check out the wedding announcements.
Have you ever noticed how many of those couples look sort of…related?
Similar smiles, similar clothes, similar noses. Go take a look, it’s pretty consistent.
You have no doubt heard “opposites attract†all throughout your life. It is a romantic notion; people who seem like natural enemies can be overtaken by a force neither party can withstand – love.
It’s a tantalizing fantasy: the princess being swept away by the rogue, the prince marrying the lowly farm girl, the uptight accountant falling for the rock star.
Despite the pleasant idea of polar opposites being pulled intangibly toward one another like biological magnets, the research suggests otherwise.
A 2008 study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology grabbed 476 women and 284 men from an online dating site and asked them what kind of person they would rather be with.
When asked if they would rather be with someone just like them or someone who complimented them with a nice set of opposing personality traits, 85 percent said they wanted an opposite – the fantasy.
They had these people fill out a personality test (one of those gigantic scientific ones, not the kind you take for fun on the Internet).
Those results were put aside and hidden, and then the subjects had to take another test where they were asked what sort of things they would like to see in a perfect mate.
The results?
People actually wanted someone just like them, even though they believed they wanted someone completely different.
Source: NYT
Psychologists call this the “similarity-attraction hypothesis,†and this isn’t the only study which came to the same conclusion.
According to a 2004 study by Lucas, Wendorf and Imamoglu, “In humans, the more similar couples are, the happier and more stable their relationships are.â€
Their study included couples from America, England, China and Turkey, and it pointed to one very important factor in the pursuit of marital bliss: homogamy.
Homogamy is a fun word. It can mean same-sex marriage, or simultaneous sexual maturity, but in this study it means to be similar in culture, religion, income-level and status.
“What most people call falling in love is really falling in pattern,â€
- Paul Cutright, author of “You’re Never Upset for the Reason You Think†from an interview by Jean Lawrence
Your parents are good examples, especially if they have been together a long time. They probably have the same general religious beliefs, adhere to the same cultural norms, come from about the same socioeconomic group, and so on.
The study about homogamy also concluded people who are similar are less likely to divorce.
Source: Local-I-Dos.com
People who are more like you are more fun to be around, easier to talk to and more likely to like the same movies and TV shows you do. They’ve read the same books and loved them as much as you did. If they have yet to read those books, you can look forward to introducing them to your favorites.
When you discover new things, you respond to them in a similar way. You say, “That’s awesome!†They say, “Yeah, that’s really cool.â€
When you find someone who matches up with your personality, they validate your beliefs and world-view, they confirm your outlook.
In other words, you don’t argue as much.
While it may be true opposites sometimes attract in the early, sexually-charged, primal stages of dating, when it comes to staying together and staying happy, opposites repel.
You’ve probably been in one of those relationships were you just knew you didn’t fit with the other person. Something early on attracted you, or a situation brought you together, and then somewhere down the line you realized you had nothing in common at all. You may have tried to keep it together despite your differences, but the research suggests you would be happier if you just parted ways.
“Assessing similarity and difference allows us to decide with whom we fit. Research has shown that people generally are most comfortable with others who are like them, so we tend to gravitate toward those we regard as similar.â€
- “Communication in Our Lives†by Julia T. Wood.
A study at the University of Iowa in 2005 found a slightly more nuanced connection. Their research said religion and politics were important, but not as important as personality traits like sense of humor, extraversion, values, morals, and such.
It seems pretty evident. Most people want a partner with whom they share a lot in common, not who challenges their every notion of how the world works.
So, what about choosing someone who looks like you. Does it go that far? Are you really that much like Narcissus pining away at his reflection?
Maybe.
“People tend to look for almost a clone of themselves. They are very specific — too specific.â€
- Psychologist Susan K. Perry, from an interview with Jean Lawrence
A controversial 2008 study at the University of Pecs in Hungary suggests women gravitate toward men who look like their fathers. If adopted, they prefer the looks of the man who reared them.
Source: NYT
The same research showed this “imprinting†evaporated if the relationship between father and daughter was poor.
Going further, scientists in this study and others believe some genetic similarities are good when you are planning to make babies. What those similarities are and how the human face helps you detect them are still a topic of debate.
A 2006 study at the University of Liverpool showed over time, couples faces tend to look even more similar than they did when they married thanks to mimicking the same expressions for decades.
Maybe all those peculiar look-alikes in the wedding announcement pages aren’t so peculiar after all.
There are many factors to attraction, not just chiseled abs and gorgeous curves, masculine jaws and luscious lips. You can throw in health, youth, income and hip-to-waist ratio while you’re at it.
However, besides all those initial factors, it seems as though you are looking for someone with a great outlook on life and a wonderful sense of humor, and the rubric, the standard by which you judge potential mates, is you.
It's very interesting and I can see where it's right.