
There’s an adage that in romantic relationships, opposites attract. Now, a large, new study confirms that just like many old sayings, it’s wrong. In an analysis of about 200 studies involving millions of couples, researchers came to the conclusion that there is little behind the claim that opposites attract. If anything, the one about birds of feather flocking together is much closer to the truth. When it came to the hundreds of “traits” the study analyzed — from political leanings to smoking and drinking habits — partners were almost always more alike than different. It was only in relation to 3% of traits that people tended to pair off with someone who had different inclinations, according to the findings published recently in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. To be fair to the adage, the findings do not mean that people rarely find themselves attracted to someone who is much different from them. “We looked at cohabiting and co-parenting couples,” explained lead researcher Tanya Horwitz, a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder. “So, this study speaks to long-term relationships.” On average, the findings show, long-term partners are similar in a host of ways — from religious and political beliefs, to educational background and certain aspects of intelligence, to lifestyle habits. The results are based on data from 199 published studies involving millions of male-female… read on > read on >