Gender-Role Orientation and Preference for an Intimate Partner

Abstract

Past research in the area of interpersonal attraction for intimate partners has attempted to ascertain if androgynous college students prefer other androgynous individuals as intimate partners (similarity hypothesis) and if gender-typed students prefer gender-typed individuals as intimate partners (complementarity hypothesis). This premise has not been unequivocally verified. Methodological limitations of these investigations is one potential reason for the equivocal findings. This study employed a methodological technique that addresses these possible limitations by defining similarity and complementarity as relationship processes and by considering them as extremes of a unidimensional continuum. College students were classified by gender-role orientation using the Bern Sex Role Inventory and were asked to report the attributes they would seek in a partner and offer to a partner. The results supported the common premise: gender-typed (and undifferentiated) students were more likely to report preference for a complementary relationship than androgynous students. Advantages of the methodological techniques employed in this study and its limitations are discussed.