Do opposites really attract? A new study finds that when it comes to personality, people seek partners with their same qualities - but claim to want someone who is different.
The study, recently published in the journal
Evolutionary Psychology, asked 760 members of an
online dating site to answer questionnaires regarding their personality traits, as well as the traits they would want in an ideal long-term partner. They then were asked if they most wanted a partner that complemented them, or resembled them.
The answers showed a preference for someone with the same sort of
personality; the traits, which included neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, all had positive participant-to-partner correlations, ranging from .51 to .62.