People who are similar in attractiveness are said to be more likely to be a couple than people rated less similarly. Murstein carried out a study into the matching hypothesis and proposes we are attracted to people who match us in terms of physical attraction this could be due to a fear of rejection or to create balance between partners. Psychologists have argued that we may be attracted to people who score 10/10 but if we rate ourselves as average it is unlikely we would end up with them in a long term relationship. However these methods can also be criticized for their artificiality. Much of the research asks people to rate photos, usually just faces, this is not the way people develop relationships with real people as there is no interaction involved and is an over emphasis on immediate judgment.
Silverman(1971) asked participants to rate levels of attractiveness of members of couples observed in lobbies and bars. There was remarkably similarity in the rated attractiveness of the partners. This study has greater ecological validity as it uses real life couples in real life situations, however again there are limitations as to the applicability of the matching hypothesis as it only refers to romantic relationships.
Physical attraction is not just important at first, Murstein & Christy(1976) found that married couples were more similar in attractiveness than dating couples.
People tend to like others who are similar to themselves on a range of factors including age, religion and attitudes. Duck & Barnes (1992) found this to be true for all ages. Evidence suggests that the critical similarities are those concerning beliefs, attitudes and values.
Newcombe (1961) recruited students and gained information about their beliefs and attitudes to determine who would share rooms. Some were paired with someone with similar attitudes, some with a person with different attitudes. Friendships were more likely to develop between students who shared the same beliefs and attitudes than those who did not. Byrne et al(1961) found that attitude similarity had much more of an effect on attraction when the attitudes were of importance to the individual. Caspi & Herbener(1990) found that married couples tend to be similar on all personality dimensions. Rubin (1973) found that American married couples had similar attitudes on politics and religion. However it is not clear whether these couples were initially similar or ‘grew’ more similar over time. Hill et al (1976) found high levels of similarity for dating couples on a range of factors. Their study also found that the initial level of similarity between couples was a good predictor of whether they would still be together one year later.
Winch(1958) argued that opposites attract and found that married couples were happier if they had complementary needs e.g. Dominant and submissive, however most evidence indicate that similarity of personality is important.
Increased contact increases the likelihood that relationships form even internet relationships are formed through a kind of proximity. Zajonc (1968) put forward the idea that familiarity increases attraction. He termed this the ‘mere exposure effect’. He presented photos of unknown faces to participants and asked them to rate them in terms of how much they felt they would like the person. The lowest attractiveness ratings were given by participants who had never seen the photos before, the highest by participants who had see the photos most often. It seems that people get to like someone the more times they are exposed to them. However frequency of interaction can also produce more disliking. So it may be that it results in greater intensity of feelings which can be positive or negative.
Newcombe found that students became friends with their room-mates even when there was an inconsistency in attitudes, supporting that familiarity may be more important than attitude similarity in friendships. A problem is that much research in this area has been artificial and leaves out most of the things people do in everyday life. It is impossible to control the important factors which influence relationship formation, except in highly artificial situations which lack ecological validity. Much of the research has focused on thoughts or attitudes rather than actual social interaction. There has also been a focus on a limited variety of relationships often between young students in America and so there is a danger generalizing from such a limited population. Also there has been too much emphasis on romantic relationships at the expense of other important relationships.