Do opposites attract? Not according to the data – the plain and simple truth is that we like people like us. But it gets worse: A study found out why.
While it is often said that opposites attract, research has long shown that the, no pun intended, opposite is true: We tend to like people who are like us. Now, a study answers the why – and offers a surprisingly simple reason.
A series of studies conducted by Charles Chu, assistant professor of management and organizations at Boston University, shows that people who believe in a core, an essence, that drives their personalities, likes and dislikes are drawn to others who share their specific interests. For example, meeting someone at a party who wears a shirt of that obscure band you like or laughs at the same jokes, or goes for the one terrible snack everyone hates – everyone except you. Feeling fuzzy already? You’re not alone: In one of his studies, Chu envisioned a fictional person, Jamie. Participants had to list their views on five topics, namely abortion, capital punishment, gun ownership, animal testing, and physician-assisted suicide.
They were then asked to describe their attitude toward Jamie and her views and – surprise! – the more she agreed with the participants’ views, the more they liked her. It doesn’t even have to go as far as discussing abortion: When asked to estimate a number of dots on a page, participants were divided into under- and over-estimators. When told that Jamie belonged to the same group as them, they immediately felt more positively about her. Just a quick reminder: Jamie doesn’t exist – which shows how quick humans are to judge others. “When you hear a single fact or opinion being expressed that you either agree or disagree with, it really warrants taking an additional breath and just slowing down,” Chu says. “Not necessarily taking that single piece of information and extrapolating on it, using this type of thinking to go to the very end, that this person is fundamentally good and like me or fundamentally bad and not like me,” he states.
He found that so-called self-essentialist reasoning drives feelings of attraction or repulsion. If people imagine a core that shapes their personality, they apply this concept to others as well. Miniscule details form the basis of feeling connected to someone – or repelled. “If we had to come up with an image of our sense of self, it would be this nugget, an almost magical core inside that emanates out and causes what we can see and observe about people and ourselves,” says Chu. When we meet someone who shares one characteristic with us, they must share our deeply rooted views too and vice versa. Chu points out an important flaw in this way of thinking: “But we only have full insight into our own thoughts and feelings and the minds of others are often a mystery to us. What this work suggests is that we often fill in the blanks of others’ minds with our own sense of self and that can sometimes lead us into some unwarranted assumptions.”
He concludes that going through life by sorting people into just two categories (like me/not like me) might be engrained into our society, but doesn’t do the complexity of humans justice. We shouldn’t keep looking for our own essence in others, but instead “form impressions of other people, without constantly referencing ourselves”. He encourages taking a step back and pausing before evaluating whether you like someone or not – and to not extrapolate a person’s personality from a band shirt.
Image source: NEOM, Unsplash
