Universität zu Köln

Sparks, Jehan, Daly, Christine, Wilkey, Brian M., Molden, Daniel C., Finkel, Eli J. and Eastwick, Paul W. (2020). Negligible evidence that people desire partners who uniquely fit their ideals. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol., 90. SAN DIEGO: ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE. ISSN 1096-0465

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Abstract

Laypersons and scholars often presume that people positively evaluate partners who match their ideal partner preferences: If Faye prefers kindness in a partner and Sonia prefers ambition, Faye should be especially attracted to kind partners and Sonia should be especially attracted to ambitious ones. However, to date, most published tests of this idea are imprecise and permit multiple interpretations of the data. The current studies improve upon prior tests by (a) having participants self-generate the ideal attributes that matter most to them and (b) using a yoked design to isolate the predictive power of self-generated (vs. other-generated) ideal attributes. Overall, participants were more romantically interested in blind-date partners (Study 1) and acquaintances/friends/romantic partners (Study 2) to the extent that they thought those individuals possessed the ideal attributes. But the positive association of these attributes with romantic interest was identical regardless of whether the attributes represented the participant's self-generated ideals or someone else's ideals. We also used a novel coding scheme to organize participants' 1011 self-generated ideal attributes into 95 different attribute-categories; we then implemented three exclusion strategies (that differed in breadth vs. precision) using this scheme in order to maximize idiosyncratic variability between self-and other-generated ideals. All approaches revealed identical conclusions. Focused tests of ideal partner preference-matching may reveal that individual differences in ideal partner preferences poorly correspond to the attributes that uniquely inspire romantic interest.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Sparks, Jehan UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Daly, Christine UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Wilkey, Brian M. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Molden, Daniel C. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Finkel, Eli J. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Eastwick, Paul W. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-321911
DOI:	10.1016/j.jesp.2020.103968
Journal or Publication Title:	J. Exp. Soc. Psychol.
Volume:	90
Date:	2020
Publisher:	ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
Place of Publication:	SAN DIEGO
ISSN:	1096-0465
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language MATE PREFERENCES; SEX-DIFFERENCES; CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS; ROMANTIC PARTNERS; SHORT-TERM; ACCURACY; ATTRACTION; PSYCHOLOGY; STANDARDS; TRAITS Multiple languages Psychology, Social Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/32191