Actually, Opposites Don't Attract

photo: blue-skytransformation.com

(Wired) By Jonah Lehrer - Opposites attract. Although we love to repeat this optimistic cliche about human natures, decades of psychological research have demonstrated that the trusim isn’t true. Rather, people seek out people who are just like them. This is known as the similarity-attraction effect, or SAE. Although there is slight variation in the strength of the effect, the SAE has been shown to exist in nearly every culture, from Western Europe to the remote tribes of the Brazilian rainforest. It doesn’t matter where we live or how we grew up or which language we speak – we still want to spend time with people who feel similar. It’s simply more comfortable.

Consider this study, conducted by Paul Ingram and Michael Morris at Columbia University. The psychologists invited a motley group of executives to a cocktail mixer, where they were encouraged to network with new people. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of executives at the event said their primary goal was to meet “as many different as people as possible” and “expand their social network”. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. By surreptitiously monitoring the participants with electronic name tags, Ingram and Morris were able to track every conversation. What they found was that people tended to interact with the people who were most like them, so that investment bankers chatted with other investment bankers, and marketers talked with other marketers, and accountants interacted with other accountants. Instead of making friends with strangers, the business people made small talk with those from similar backgrounds; the smallness of their social world got reinforced. The scientists summarize their results:

Do people mix at mixers? The answer is no…Mixer parties are supposed to free their guests from the constraints of preexisting social structure so they can approach strangers and make new connections. Nevertheless, our results show that guests at a mixer tend to spend the time talking to the few other guests whom they already know well.

Read full story at Wired.com...