Do Opposites Attract? What Research Says About Similarity and Love
"Opposites attract" is one of the most repeated ideas about love. Films love it: the tidy one and the messy one, the planner and the free spirit. Research tells a more interesting story. People mostly choose partners who are like them, but the kind of similarity that matters is not always the one you would expect.
Similar people tend to find each other
In a 2016 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, psychologists Angela Bahns and Chris Crandall surveyed pairs of friends and romantic partners about their attitudes, values, personality and everyday behaviour. They found that pairs were already similar when their relationship began, and that couples who had been together longer were not more alike than new pairs.
As Bahns put it, "People are more similar than chance on almost everything we measure." The researchers described choosing similar partners as close to "a psychological default."
Similarity attracts, especially at first
A large review by R. Matthew Montoya, Robert Horton and Jeffrey Kirchner, published in 2008, combined the results of 313 studies. Both actual similarity (how alike two people really are) and perceived similarity (how alike they feel they are) were linked to attraction.
There was an important twist. Actual similarity mattered most when people had little or no contact, for example when judging a profile. In existing relationships, its effect was not significant. Perceived similarity, the feeling that "we see the world the same way," predicted attraction in every setting the researchers looked at.
In other words, feeling understood may matter more over time than matching on a checklist.
Matching personalities is not the whole story
A 2010 study by Portia Dyrenforth and colleagues used large, nationally representative samples of couples from three countries. They compared three things: each person's own personality, their partner's personality, and how similar the two were.
Each person's own personality explained about 6% of the differences in how satisfied they were with their relationship. Their partner's personality added a little more, especially when the partner was agreeable, conscientious and emotionally stable. Personality similarity itself explained less than half of one percent.
The practical lesson: a kind, reliable, emotionally steady partner matters more than a partner whose personality mirrors yours.
People rarely change each other
Bahns and Crandall also found that partners did not become more alike over time in their attitudes, values or personality, and that disagreements on important values tended to last. In Bahns's words, "Change is difficult and unlikely."
This is worth remembering early on. If you differ on something that truly matters to you, such as faith, family plans or where to live, it is safer to assume the difference will stay than to hope it will fade.
What this means for your search
- Look for shared values, not a personality twin. Agreement on the things that matter most to you is what similar couples tend to share.
- Notice how you feel together. Feeling understood and accepted is the kind of similarity that keeps mattering.
- Value kindness, reliability and calm. These traits in a partner were linked to greater satisfaction in the research above.
- Take important differences seriously. Talk about them early and honestly, rather than expecting them to disappear.
- Enjoy the small differences. Different hobbies or tastes can add variety. The research is about values and character, not about whether you both like the same food.
Where Love-Ready fits
Love-Ready Society introduces people on the basis of values, character and the way they love, and lets you set the things you will not compromise on. No questionnaire can promise a good relationship, and the research above is a reminder that kindness and steadiness matter as much as any match. If you would like introductions built on what matters to you, join Love-Ready Society, or start with our free love menu quiz.
Sources
- New study finds our desire for 'like-minded others' is hard-wired, University of Kansas (on Bahns and Crandall, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2016)
- Montoya, Horton and Kirchner (2008), Is actual similarity necessary for attraction? A meta-analysis of actual and perceived similarity, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
- Dyrenforth, Kashy, Donnellan and Lucas (2010), Predicting relationship and life satisfaction from personality in nationally representative samples from three countries, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology