Love and statistics
Because “opposites attract” – study finds that we love very similar partners
Common interests are part of many partnerships.
© Oleh Slobodeniuk/Getty Images
When it comes to love and relationships, we value great agreement. This is shown by large-scale data analysis. The researchers were unable to find any evidence that opposite people stay together.
Opposites are supposed to be the icing on the cake – that’s true in romcoms, but in real life it’s completely different. A new study asked numerous characteristics of couples. It was about political attitudes, drug consumption and also the question of at what age they had sex for the first time. “Soft” factors such as views were queried, but also “hard” ones.
The result: The couples agreed with each other on more than 80 percent of the factors. “Our results show that birds with the same feathers are more likely to fly together,” said Tanya Horwitz of the University of Colorado Boulder. For this study, published in the journal Nature, researchers re-evaluated previous results and also conducted a new analysis of 133 traits on almost 80,000 couples who took part in the UK Biobank project. In total, over 130 characteristics from millions of heterosexual couples over a period of over 100 years were included. The study is based on a very large number of people, so it is not a form of “homework study” for which a few dozen people were surveyed.
The new sample from the UK Biobank is the most detailed. There are hardly any characteristics with a negative correlation, so opposites do not attract.
Unconscious criteria
Some characteristics correlate very strongly, including political and religious views and level of education. Smokers, drinkers and teetotalers also like to keep to themselves. Other factors such as height, weight, medical problems and personality traits can vary quite a bit
“Even in situations where we feel like we have a choice in our relationships, there may be mechanisms going on behind the scenes that we aren’t fully aware of,” Horwitz said. The finding has far-reaching consequences. “Many models in genetics assume that human mating occurs at random. This study shows that this assumption is likely incorrect,” said co-author Matt Keller. Partnerships are the central element in the transmission of genes; if the selection of the partner is selective, completely different patterns emerge than expected.
Living in the social bubble
Relationships arise because of similarities. The circle of friends is already a special group and does not cover the entirety of society. People grow up in a certain environment and in this group they are subject to the same sociological influences. This shapes self-perception and worldview. Long partnerships also lead to further alignment. And some people are explicitly attracted to people who are similar to them.
The “social bubble” tends to reinforce and reproduce itself. In the USA, for example, it is well known that the social elevator through marriage has practically come to a standstill; today people commit themselves to a partner with a comparable education and a similar economic background. One of the consequences: the poor stay among themselves, the elite form “power couples”.
Source: Nature Human Behaviour