The popular long-time theory of opposites attract has been proven to be a myth. A recent study conducted by a research team at Kansas University and Wellesley College has concluded that similar personalities are more likely to be attracted to one another than opposites.
The study was led by two professors, assistant professor of psychology at Wellesley College Angela Bahns, and a psychology professor at Kansas University, Chris Crandall. Within the study, researchers focused on college relationships.
"Early experiences in college are important for determining who our friends are," said Bahns.
The research team collected its data for the study by using a method known as "free range dyad harvesting." This method asks a pair of people specific questions regarding attributes such as values, attitude, prejudices, personality traits and behaviors.
"We were interested first in the question, 'Do people know that they share their attitudes with other people?' And in that question, we found was that it doesn't matter how much you talk about an attitude or belief, it does not affect how similar you are," said Crandall.
The result of this test was purposed to determine if the pairs who knew each other longer were more similar than a pair of people who knew each other for only a short amount of time. The conclusive results found was this this was not true.
The professors and their research teams then reduced their research to focus on the university as well as some smaller campuses in western and central Kansas. The conclusion to their research indicates that students who are part of a larger campus are more likely to be in contact with like-minded people than students from smaller campuses. This is due to the fact that people at larger campuses have more people to choose from.
Bahns continued to elaborate on one of the most surprising results discovered from their findings, which was that future partners already have similar personalities before they even begin interacting. If two people have similarities they are more likely to continue to interact with one another and build a foundational relationship.
The findings further demonstrate that like-minded partnerships are in fact part of our genetic makeup and that people in relationships do not change each other over time. On the contrary, the friendships compared to relationships differentiated. Friendships at smaller campuses were not always based on like-mindedness. While it is more complimentary to have friends with similarities, it is also essential to be in contact with people that challenge you as an individual and familiarize you with different beliefs and perspectives.
"You don't notice similarities, you only notice dissimilarities," said Crandall.
The study not only debunks the popular theory of opposites attract but it has major implications for how we understand the foundations of relationships.
"People are more similar than chance on almost anything we measure, and they are especially similar on the things that matter most to them personally," Bahns said.
"This is the largest field study friendships formation that I know of," said professor Wendy Berry Mendes, the Sarlo/Ekman Chair in the Study of Human Emotion at the University of California-San Francisco.
The findings have been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
