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pairs were in long-term relationships,
or were newly formed acquaintances,
such as classmates.
University of Kansas professor of
psychology Chris Crandall explained
that this innate drive is practical. “You
try to create a social world where you’re
comfortable, where you succeed, where
you have people you can trust and with
whom you can cooperate to meet your
goals. To create this similarity is very
useful, and people are attracted to it
most of the time.”
Opposites
Don’t Attract
The study was published in the
February 2016 issue of the Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology.
Think opposites attract? Think again.
New research indicates that we are
hardwired to choose people who are
like-minded when selecting friends
and partners.
—Justin Hannah
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Researchers at Wellesley College
and the University of Kansas were
interested in relationships between
friends, acquaintances and romantic
couples. They were particularly
interested in the earliest moments of
those relationships.
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“Picture two strangers striking up a
conversation on a plane, or a couple
on a blind date,” said Wellesley
College assistant professor of
psychology Angela Bahns, one of
the study’s authors. “From the very
first moments of awkward banter,
how similar the two people are is
immediately and powerfully playing
a role in future interactions. Will they
connect? Or walk away? Those early
recognitions of similarity are really
consequential in that decision.”
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“Each contact with a
human being is so
rare, so precious, one
should preserve it.”
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To obtain data, pairs of people
interacting in public were approached
and asked questions about their
core values, attitudes, personality
traits and behaviors. According to
Bahns, the pairs were found to be
“more similar than chance on almost
everything we measure, and [were]
especially similar on the things that
mattered most to them personally.”
These similarities existed whether the
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