Social pressures for assortative mating

Abstract

Two experiments explored the degree to which dating couples assort on physical and psychological traits. Experiment I demonstrates that 59 couples show similarities on a number of physical and non-physical (psychological) traits. Correlations are significantly different from randomized pairs and from zero when individuals rate the degree to which their partner shares similar traits. Correlations range from 0.35 to 0.66 for traits related to reproduction (i.e. interest in sex, marriage, and reproduction). Approximately equal levels of assortment occur for physical and psychological traits, and in short- and long-term relationships. Experiment II shows that subjects can reassort individual photographs of 12 dating couples presented in a random array significantly better than chance. The frequency with which the 50 subjects reassort couples is significantly correlated with the rated degree of similarity for those couples ( r = 0.50). Moreover, attributions of reproductive potential are significantly related to judgments of couple similarity ( r = 0.78 to 0.99).