Practice question · Multiple choice
Folk wisdom says opposites attract. The research says similarity predicts attraction robustly and complementarity barely at all. Why does the folk belief survive?
Hints
- Ask which couples get remarked upon at a party, and which are unremarkable.
- An availability effect: what is memorable is not what is frequent.
Show the answer
C. Because differences are noticeable and similarities are not
Why
The memorable cases are the mismatched ones, and matched couples are invisible precisely because nothing about them prompts comment. The belief survives on a biased sample of anecdotes, which is a fair description of most folk psychology, and why the boring finding usually turns out to be the true one.
Practise Interpersonal Attraction: The Science of Social Bonding
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