Opposites don’t attract and birds of a feather DO flock together: Study finds that personality traits including views on politics and religion are strongly similar in couples
- Scientists found that political views and religious views matched each other in couples
- Romantic partners were also likely to have had similar substance use
- Scientists analyzed 130 personality traits of millions of couples
Whether it’s Jack and Rose in the Titanic or Danny and Sandy in Grease, we’ve come to believe that opposites attract.
But analysis of more than 130 personality traits from millions of couples suggests that saying is simply not true.
“Our findings show that birds are indeed more likely to feather with feathers,” said study author Tanya Horwitz of the University of Colorado Boulder.
Her team in the US combined data from nearly 200 previous studies dating back to 1903 with their own analysis.
They examined dozens of characteristics of couples, including parents, married, engaged couples and cohabiting partners.
Scientists found that traits such as political and religious attitudes, level of education, and certain levels of intelligence were highly similar between the pairs (Stock)
Partners also likely shared traits related to substance use – with heavy smokers, drinkers, and teetotalers strongly tending to associate with those who had similar habits (Stock)
They found that characteristics such as political and religious attitudes, level of education and certain levels of intelligence were very similar between the pairs.
Partners also likely shared traits related to substance use—with heavy smokers, drinkers, and teetotalers tended strongly to associate with those who had similar habits.
There were also links between height, weight, medical conditions and personality traits, the researchers found.
The characteristic for which couples were most likely to resemble each other was the year of birth.
But based on their analysis, the team said there was “no compelling evidence” for any trait that opposites attract.
Overall, they found that 82 to 89 percent of the partners studied were more likely to be similar or dissimilar.
For only 3 percent of traits, individuals tended to collaborate with people who were different from themselves.
These include chronotype – whether someone is a ‘morning lark’ or a ‘night owl’.
“These findings suggest that even in situations where we feel we have a choice about our relationships, there may be mechanisms going on behind the scenes that we are not fully aware of,” Ms Horwitz said.
The team, whose research is published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, said couples may share traits for a variety of reasons.
Some people are attracted to people who look like them, while others become more like each other the longer they are together.
However, there could be long-term consequences — for example, if short people are more likely to have children with other short individuals, more extreme heights may occur in the next generation, they said.
Meanwhile, people working with people of similar educational backgrounds could inadvertently widen the socio-economic gap.