Research into how we choose our mate reveals some surprises.
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You may not realize it, but when you gaze into your partner’s eyes, there’s a good chance that you’re looking at a modified reflection of yourself. Researchers have found that people choose mates who tend to be of similar size, shape and ethnicity as themselves… and they may even have facial features in common. (Do you look like your name? Science says yes!)
Take Lot Geels of Amsterdam and her American husband Brock Mosovsky, for example. “We both have blond hair and blue eyes,” says Lot. “Neither of us is very tall. We’re both built athletically and we’re both mainly of European descent.”
Even if you don’t look like your spouse, you likely share non-physical characteristics, according to a growing field of research, like education level, socioeconomic standing, religion, personality traits, even core values.
Lot and Brock fall into this category, as well. “We both have PhDs and work in research,” she says. “ We both love an active lifestyle, mainly rock climbing and skiing/snowboarding. Our world views are pretty similar, and we’re both hard-working, social and friendly people.”
Researchers have been studying the phenomenon of people with similarities pairing up—known as positive assortative mating—for decades. If you’re sure that “opposites attract,” you may be surprised by research findings, which prove that like attracts like. However, if you believe that “birds of a feather flock together,” you probably understand why people overwhelmingly seek life partners who remind them, on some comforting level, of themselves.
“There’s an element of predictability when you date somebody of a similar background,” says Ty Tashiro, author of
The Science of Happily Ever After
. “They’re less threatening, less scary. They’ll be more of a familiar person from the start. Familiarity is something we find attractive.”
For most people, positive assortative mating takes place unconsciously (unless you actively seek someone from the same ethnic background or religion). Here’s how it plays out in real life:
The people in your neighborhood
The simplest reason why you may marry someone like yourself hinges on convenience and geography. “It’s more likely to meet someone from your own social circles because they go to the same church or school or university or live in the same area,” says Abdel Abdellaoui, a genetics researcher at VU University Amsterdam.
Abdellaoui found that in the Netherlands, people who live in the northern part of the country are genetically distinguishable from people in the southern part of the country because people tend to marry their neighbors. “Many of the genetic similarities can be explained by people with similar ancestries having children,” Abdellaoui says. “Our studies look at whether people assortatively mate or not, and they do, clearly. The majority of the spouse pairs resemble each other more than you would expect by chance.”
Of course, you may not always live in the neighborhood where you’re raised. If you attend university, you move onto a campus where you’re surrounded by your intellectual and socioeconomic equals. Once you start working, you may relocate to a city where it’s easier to find a job in your field, then spend the majority of your waking hours interacting with business associates with the same education level and similar socioeconomic standing.
If you’re an attorney, you’re much more likely to fall in love with an attorney or another professional you meet through colleagues or friends. You’ve still found a partner through positive assortative mating, but your similarities are less physically obvious. “Higher-educated spouses have children that have a little more genetic variation that those with lower education because they migrate less,” Abdellaoui says.
What’s cookin,’ good lookin’?
If you’ve ever done a double-take because you’ve seen a beautiful woman walking hand-in-hand with a really unattractive man, you won’t be surprised to learn that research confirms that this doesn’t happen often: Most people assortatively mate for levels of attractiveness.
“The most attractive people will pair up with the most attractive, and the medium attractiveness people will pair up and the lowest attractiveness people match up,” Tashiro says. “You can get mismatches, of course, usually due to socioeconomic differences. In general, you get attractive people with attractive people.” This doesn’t mean that unattractive people don’t find attractive people appealing. Rather, Tashiro explains, “people are self-aware of their standing in the world of attractiveness and realize that their best chance of reciprocated attraction is with those at roughly the same level.”
“There’s a thing called fidelity insurance,” says John Speakman, a professor at the University of Aberdeen’s Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences. “What that suggests is that we choose partners that are around our level of physical attractiveness because we’re trying to ensure our partner doesn’t cheat on us.”
Weighing your options
Fidelity insurance and assortative mating may also influence choices regarding potential mates’ body types. Speakman’s research has shown that obese people tend to be married to other obese people. “If you ask people of a range of body weights what they find attractive, they all choose slim people,” Speakman says. “But obese people may not see slim people as a good choice for a lifetime partner.”
