The verdict: Likes attract

When you have been married for some time, would your personalities converge? By “converge,” it means, will your personalities be more similar? I have met many couples who seem to think this is the case. But I have always personally doubted this. I have observed that people I know who decide to commit to each other, more often than not, have similar personalities to start with and that the length of their marriage has nothing to do with how similar husband and wife are.

Science seems to be on my side on this one in the form of a study that came out late last year in the journal Personality and Individual Differences entitled “Is spousal similarity for personality a matter of convergence or selection?” done by Mikhila N. Humbad, M. Brent Donnellan, William G. Iacono, Matthew McGue, and S. Alexandra Burt. It “invaded” (with consent) the inner lives of 1,296 married couples to study their individual personalities. The couples chosen have been married for an average of 19.8 years with a range of two to 39 years. The study wanted to know whether indeed, as have been presupposed by many, personality similarity increases between husband and wife, the longer they have been married.

How did they the researchers know the personalities of the couples? The researchers did this by making the couples answer an established tool called the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire containing 198 items that make up one’s personality in three “orders.” The first two have to do with emotionality from positive to negative. These generally include the tendency to experience positive and negative emotions such as being optimistic or given to sudden mood changes, persistence in pursuing one’s goals or on and off about it, being sociable and affectionate or estrangement. It also included aggression. The third “order” had to with behavioral restraint in terms of being cautious or planning ahead, risk-taking or its other side — conformity.

The results revealed that in all the items except aggression, the personalities of the individuals being similar to each other did NOT have anything significant to do with the length of their married life. In aggression, however, it seemed that if one was aggressive and the other stayed on, the behavior was further bred and reinforced in each other throughout the length of married life.

I think this study enlightens us in more than just knowing that marriages do not make us more similar with our partners. It should let us know early on that we are more likely to pick people who are similar to us. This could make us realize that when you choose one who seems to need saving from his or her problematic personality, chances are you may have those same “problems” yourself. If so, then you should probably reflect on them and try to resolve them before you go and pick someone. It may be scary at first to find that out but it would be liberating to know so we can do something about it. Self-awareness is always known to skew the brain somewhat so we could change ourselves.

I know what you must be saying by now. I also say it too when I cite scientific studies that measure intangibles like emotional bonds whether between star-crossed lovers or old married couples. Yes, our love relationships and the commitments we make with our partners could not be absolutely captured by the 198 knots of the personality net that was used in the study. Surely, an individual’s personality is made up of more nuances than that. Of course, it is. But if science did not do this, we would all ALWAYS assume that opposites really attract and that time spent in married life would eventually iron out different personalities. We would not have that doubt that could move you to look at yourself and look at things as they are and perhaps, resolve to be better.

My heart goes out to psychologists who always have to deal with the messy subject of human emotions and relationships. No one formula, molecule or mechanism could make them stand still for you so you can wrap your life around it with absolute certainty. That is what makes it so messy and that is why artists are probably better at expressing it than scientists.

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