What I observe in my relationships is that you must in fact be very similar on the most essential stuff, such as ethics, basic dreams and desires, and your idea of family. Other than that, you get...
What I observe in my relationships is that you must in fact be very similar on the most essential stuff, such as ethics, basic dreams and desires, and your idea of family. Other than that, you get a complex set of differences and similarities that are either complementary or interesting to explore for mutual amusement.
My extroverted partner is, essentially, my public relations to the world. It takes a load off my back. Anything that requires meditated reasoning, introspection, house chores, or being alone for long periods of time, falls under my purview. We're happy.
Wood actually gets repelled by magnets, don't know if that helps your metaphor or just convinces you that science is dark magic and everything you knew is a lie. I'm glad scientists are smarter...
Wood actually gets repelled by magnets, don't know if that helps your metaphor or just convinces you that science is dark magic and everything you knew is a lie.
I'm glad scientists are smarter and/or more stubborn than me, otherwise we would've gotten nowhere.
Lisa Marshall Link to the study (paywalled) Authors: Horwitz, Balbona, Paulich and Keller
Lisa Marshall
Despite some conventional wisdom to the contrary, opposites don’t actually attract.
That’s the takeaway from a sweeping CU Boulder analysis of more than 130 traits and including millions of couples over more than a century.
“Our findings demonstrate that birds of a feather are indeed more likely to flock together,” said first author Tanya Horwitz
The study, published in the journal “Nature Human Behaviour,” confirms what individual studies have hinted at for decades, defying the age-old adage that “opposites attract.”
It found that for between 82% and 89% of traits analyzed partners were more likely than not to be similar.
For only 3% of traits, and only in one part of their analysis, did individuals tend to partner with those who were different than them.
Aside from shedding light on unseen forces that may shape human relationships, the research has important implications for the field of genetic research.
“A lot of models in genetics assume that human mating is random. This study shows this assumption is probably wrong,” said senior author and IBG Director Matt Keller, noting that what is known as “assortative mating”—when individuals with similar traits couple up—can skew findings of genetic studies.
For the meta-analysis, they looked at 22 traits across 199 studies including millions of male-female co-parents, engaged pairs, married pairs or cohabitating pairs. The oldest study was conducted in 1903.
In addition, they used a dataset called the UK Biobank to study 133 traits, including many that are seldom studied, across almost 80,000 opposite-sex pairs in the United Kingdom.
Same sex couples were not included in the research. Because the patterns there may differ significantly, the authors are now exploring those separately.
Across both analyses, traits like political and religious attitudes, level of education, and certain measures of IQ showed particularly high correlations.
Traits around substance use also showed high correlations, with heavy smokers, heavy drinkers and teetotalers tending strongly to partner up with those with similar habits.
Meanwhile, traits like height and weight, medical conditions and personality traits showed far lower but still positive correlations.
For some traits, like extroversion, there was not much of a correlation at all.
“People have all these theories that extroverts like introverts or extroverts like other extroverts, but the fact of the matter is that it’s about like flipping a coin: Extroverts are similarly likely to end up with extroverts as with introverts,” said Horwitz.
In the meta-analysis, the researchers found “no compelling evidence” on any trait that opposites attract.
The researchers caution that the correlations they found were fairly modest and should not be overstated or misused to promote an agenda (Horwitz points out that assortative mating research was, tragically, co-opted by the eugenics movement).
What a weird idea. Human mating random? Any of you out there just close your eyes and point to select your mate? Maybe I'm missing the intention, but that choice of words strikes me as bizarre. As...
“A lot of models in genetics assume that human mating is random. This study shows this assumption is probably wrong,”
What a weird idea. Human mating random? Any of you out there just close your eyes and point to select your mate? Maybe I'm missing the intention, but that choice of words strikes me as bizarre. As if we spin a wheel and mate, or perhaps we just expel our spores into the air to mix with other spores.
Not random for the individual, but random when put into a group. Imagine asking a group of people their favourite meal: each person has valid and thought-out reasons for picking their own, but the...
Not random for the individual, but random when put into a group. Imagine asking a group of people their favourite meal: each person has valid and thought-out reasons for picking their own, but the results of the group would be pretty random
i dont think favorite foods are random, you ask a group of people what they like and there will be themes and trends based on culture (ie, not random). no one is going to say they like to put...
i dont think favorite foods are random, you ask a group of people what they like and there will be themes and trends based on culture (ie, not random). no one is going to say they like to put ketchup, pickles, and tri-tip on their breakfast cereal. same with mate selection: preferred phenotypes will be largely based on cultural experiences
It’s more of an assumption/axiom deliberately chosen to make modelling, in this case in genetics, possible. It’s like the old joke about a physicist assuming a cow is a sphere on a frictionless...
It’s more of an assumption/axiom deliberately chosen to make modelling, in this case in genetics, possible. It’s like the old joke about a physicist assuming a cow is a sphere on a frictionless surface in a vacuum. It’s not completely accurate but a starting point to make calculations feasible. It also depends on the question you’re answering, sometimes a rough idea is good enough (in the case of the cow, aerodynamics aren’t usually relevant, so assuming a vacuum would be fine most of the time).
As science develops and we gain more knowledge (and computation becomes more efficient) we can add complexities to our models. In this case, if you want to include non-random mate choice, you first need to know exactly what the pattern is. But we need studies like this to know that.
Not too surprising - assortative mating has been a strong contender for "how humans likely choose partners" for quite some time in the literature. Perhaps also unsurprisingly, the most correlated...
Not too surprising - assortative mating has been a strong contender for "how humans likely choose partners" for quite some time in the literature. Perhaps also unsurprisingly, the most correlated attributes for partnering up tend to age, wealth, religion, and politics. Age is fairly obvious as one of the top contenders, and the remaining three primarily influence what social circles you end up in. Past that point we're in the realm that I think is most interesting (how much does personality matter), but also the realm which is least correlated because, unsurprisingly, people are people and attraction often varies on a lot of different axes. It also gets confusing because there are often deal-breakers that people have, as well as traits that they weigh more heavily than others. Whether someone is an introvert or an extrovert might not be nearly as important as whether someone is compassionate towards strangers for one person, and could be the opposite for another. Partnering up is further mired with issues of circumstance and timing - I wonder how many of the relationships studied started earlier on in life as opposed to later. It's not uncommon for people to become single after spending 5-15 years with their high school or college sweetheart, perhaps a reflection of their inexperience with dating and simply choosing a "good enough" partner to settle down with.
The theory behind opposites attract, aside from just the Barnum effect, is that you notice opposites. And noticing opposites essentially means noticing the person. An out-of-place thing in the...
The theory behind opposites attract, aside from just the Barnum effect, is that you notice opposites. And noticing opposites essentially means noticing the person. An out-of-place thing in the mundanity of the world. Something that strikes you and makes you want to pursue it.
Yeah, in my observation and portions of my experience, Oedipus was more correct. Probably the most opposite thing about my wife is our genders - otherwise, we just push each other to new heights...
Yeah, in my observation and portions of my experience, Oedipus was more correct. Probably the most opposite thing about my wife is our genders - otherwise, we just push each other to new heights in mostly the same directions.
What surprised me most was that they write that it is unsurprising that couples often are born in the same year. I wonder how much that is influenced by culture. That data came from the UK...
What surprised me most was that they write that it is unsurprising that couples often are born in the same year. I wonder how much that is influenced by culture. That data came from the UK data-set, but where I live I am pretty sure the most common heterosexual age coupling is the man being a little older than the woman, 1-5 years.
What I observe in my relationships is that you must in fact be very similar on the most essential stuff, such as ethics, basic dreams and desires, and your idea of family. Other than that, you get a complex set of differences and similarities that are either complementary or interesting to explore for mutual amusement.
My extroverted partner is, essentially, my public relations to the world. It takes a load off my back. Anything that requires meditated reasoning, introspection, house chores, or being alone for long periods of time, falls under my purview. We're happy.
Opposites attract, but aluminum and wood are not ferrous?
The metaphor may be salvaged yet.
I guess so? I am afraid I am not the best audience for metaphors involving chemistry :P
Wood actually gets repelled by magnets, don't know if that helps your metaphor or just convinces you that science is dark magic and everything you knew is a lie.
I'm glad scientists are smarter and/or more stubborn than me, otherwise we would've gotten nowhere.
I would like to know more.
Lisa Marshall
Link to the study (paywalled)
Authors: Horwitz, Balbona, Paulich and Keller
What a weird idea. Human mating random? Any of you out there just close your eyes and point to select your mate? Maybe I'm missing the intention, but that choice of words strikes me as bizarre. As if we spin a wheel and mate, or perhaps we just expel our spores into the air to mix with other spores.
Not random for the individual, but random when put into a group. Imagine asking a group of people their favourite meal: each person has valid and thought-out reasons for picking their own, but the results of the group would be pretty random
i dont think favorite foods are random, you ask a group of people what they like and there will be themes and trends based on culture (ie, not random). no one is going to say they like to put ketchup, pickles, and tri-tip on their breakfast cereal. same with mate selection: preferred phenotypes will be largely based on cultural experiences
It’s more of an assumption/axiom deliberately chosen to make modelling, in this case in genetics, possible. It’s like the old joke about a physicist assuming a cow is a sphere on a frictionless surface in a vacuum. It’s not completely accurate but a starting point to make calculations feasible. It also depends on the question you’re answering, sometimes a rough idea is good enough (in the case of the cow, aerodynamics aren’t usually relevant, so assuming a vacuum would be fine most of the time).
As science develops and we gain more knowledge (and computation becomes more efficient) we can add complexities to our models. In this case, if you want to include non-random mate choice, you first need to know exactly what the pattern is. But we need studies like this to know that.
Science is slow and iterative, by design.
Not too surprising - assortative mating has been a strong contender for "how humans likely choose partners" for quite some time in the literature. Perhaps also unsurprisingly, the most correlated attributes for partnering up tend to age, wealth, religion, and politics. Age is fairly obvious as one of the top contenders, and the remaining three primarily influence what social circles you end up in. Past that point we're in the realm that I think is most interesting (how much does personality matter), but also the realm which is least correlated because, unsurprisingly, people are people and attraction often varies on a lot of different axes. It also gets confusing because there are often deal-breakers that people have, as well as traits that they weigh more heavily than others. Whether someone is an introvert or an extrovert might not be nearly as important as whether someone is compassionate towards strangers for one person, and could be the opposite for another. Partnering up is further mired with issues of circumstance and timing - I wonder how many of the relationships studied started earlier on in life as opposed to later. It's not uncommon for people to become single after spending 5-15 years with their high school or college sweetheart, perhaps a reflection of their inexperience with dating and simply choosing a "good enough" partner to settle down with.
The theory behind opposites attract, aside from just the Barnum effect, is that you notice opposites. And noticing opposites essentially means noticing the person. An out-of-place thing in the mundanity of the world. Something that strikes you and makes you want to pursue it.
Yeah, in my observation and portions of my experience, Oedipus was more correct. Probably the most opposite thing about my wife is our genders - otherwise, we just push each other to new heights in mostly the same directions.
What surprised me most was that they write that it is unsurprising that couples often are born in the same year. I wonder how much that is influenced by culture. That data came from the UK data-set, but where I live I am pretty sure the most common heterosexual age coupling is the man being a little older than the woman, 1-5 years.
Part of it may be that education tends to bring people of the same age together, and some percentage of them end up marrying.
I am thinking so too, but we do have higher education in Norway as well 🤭