It’s a familiar phrase you learned as a child: opposites attract.
Growing older, you wondered if this same principle applies to people as well as magnetic fields.
Haven’t you heard that good girls alwayslike bad boys?
But that’s not scientific evidence.
A number of hardworking researchers say they’ve already found some answers.
But the truth, as usual, is complicated.
Their study is published inThe Sociological Quarterly.
People, then, who see each other as wildly different opposites will likely find one another undesirable.
So magnets yes, humans no.
What, then, explains this human behavior?
The work of psychologist Donn Byrne suggests one possible reason.
Mismatched couples, then, find their own ways to balance the scales of attraction.
Finally, each of us knows at least one long-standing couple who describe themselves as opposites.
Psychologist Matthew D. Johnson, writing forThe Conversation, argues this self-perception is not wholly accurate.
Similarity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
