Ruling out potential dating partners: the role of self-concept clarity in initial romantic partner evaluations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Because self-confusion may interfere with similarity judgments, we tested whether people who are lower, compared to higher, in self-concept clarity use similarity information less advantageously when evaluating potential romantic partners – whether they are less selective about compatibility at the relationship initiation stage. Across four repeated measures experiments (N = 758), we found that controlling for self-esteem and gender, those lower, versus higher, in self-concept clarity judge low and moderately similar others more positively but judge highly similar others equivalently well. Study 4 also showed that those lower, versus higher, in self-concept clarity are less certain about their match judgments for less similar others. Findings suggest that having an unclear sense of self may reduce discrimination for less compatible prospective dating partners.