It Happened One Night

It has become an increasingly large part of romantic American society to accept the belief that when it comes to romance, opposites attract. From the growing number of films portraying the success of relationships between people who are polar opposites, to internet dating sites who base their pairings on complementary people, meaning people different from one another, this idea has been hanging around American society like a fungus (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Rocio & Beyer stein, 2010). The top opposites attract movie of all time was called ‘It happened one night’, and dates all the way back to 1934. Since then, whole websites have been born around movies containing this famous and almost too good to be true story line. Media has definitely done its share when it comes to how this belief got started, but some of it has also come from the general view

Some people find the initial differences new and exciting, but the problems arise after the first spark has died off. Akin to the belief of opposites attracting is the phrase, birds of a feather flock together”. As you may have started to guess, only one of these is supported by scientific evidence, and unfortunately, science and romance do not always mesh. The term for two similar people being attracted to one another is homophily, and when it comes to long term relationships, this proves to be the most successful. Research has been done in all manner of ways in order to prove this belief as myth, in one study, people rated the characteristics they valued in a potential partner and were then asked to rate themselves on the same characteristics and there was a strong similarity between those characteristics found in themselves and those they desired in potential partners. Though this research is based on self-reported findings, it does offer good insight into disproving this