Opposites Attract: The Secret To Successful Relationships?
The high school sports star falling for the highly studious student is a standard plotline for cliched romcoms. Is it true for real life?
“Opposites Attract” is an age-old saying that we have heard time and again when referring to relationships. It is a common belief that we are likely to be attracted to people who are our complete opposites.
This phenomenon has been explored for decades through various research. Robert Francis Winch, a sociologist in the 1950s, found that marriages ‘worked’ if facets of personality such as aggressiveness and assertiveness were complementary; suggesting that if one individual in the relationship showed traits of extraversion, would be more satisfied with a partner who is introverted. Similarly, recent research has also demonstrated individuals who tend to have a detached demeanour were less content if their significant other was also detached. This suggests that we are less content or satisfied in our relationships if our significant others are similar to us.
This extends to platonic (i.e., non-romantic) relationships too. Vickie Lea, a behavioural and strategy consultant, states that differences between individuals invoke a sense of curiosity. Moreover, we also tend to appreciate other individuals who have a substantially different set of strengths. Lea further suggests that having a friend who is quite different to us can challenge us and provide us with a perspective we may have not previously considered.
Furthermore, John Mayer, a clinician and an author, explains that our attraction to those who tend to be our polar opposites is because they have certain attributes that we would like to develop. This brings us to the question is every relationship - platonic or romantic - based on the differences between the individuals?
Are We Attracted to Individuals Who Are Similar to Us?
If we were to consider being attracted to our opposites and the research findings mentioned above at the most fundamental level, it would suggest that we have nothing in common with our friends and/or significant other. Dr Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist, suggests that we actually tend to get along with individuals with who we share similar interests, and we are not truly attracted to our opposites.
Research evidence found that individuals are more likely to interact with individuals who are similar to them on social media. Other research literature has also found that both friendships and romantic relationships are formed based on having similar personalities. Research findings have also shown that our tendency to be attracted to similar individuals exists across cultures.
Walster and his colleagues developed the matching hypothesis which suggests that at the beginning of any romantic relationship, we tend to be attracted to individuals who we perceive to fall under the same level of social desirability as our own. This shows that we tend to get along better with individuals with whom we have things in common than with those who are different to us.
Yet, the belief that opposites attract has stood the test of time and is still quite a prevalent belief. This can be explained due to some key factors. Firstly, we tend to notice the differences between individuals rather than the similarities. The Social Identity Theory, developed by Henri Tajfel, adds to this as we are able to notice the differences between each other much more easily to help us identify individuals with whom we share specific interests.
In the book, Reconcilable Differences, Psychologists and authors Andrew Christensen, Brain Doss and Neil Jacobson state that relationships become complementary over time. Research has found that individuals tend to become more complementary when they compare their performance with their partner. However, this did not affect how they perceived themselves. The findings also showed that complementarity also resulted when one of the partners outperformed the other. This shows that in romantic relationships, individuals tend to view themselves as a team by increasing their complementarity levels.
So, before we consider the adage to be false or a myth, we might want to take a step back and consider what various research literature has found. In any relationship we form, there is a semblance of similarity that we look for whether it is our personality or attitudes. Yet too much similarity can also become mundane and does not give us the opportunity to grow and tends to diminish our levels of contentment. Thus, over time we start viewing the relationship as a team wherein each individual brings their ‘strengths to the table’, complementing each other as time goes by.
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