Meet your match or aim higher? eHarmony suggests that dating up is a good idea.
By eHarmony — Written on Sep 12, 2011
A beautiful girlfriend of mine was on eHarmony and was matched with an incredibly handsome and successful guy. Although, they were matched on compatibility and I thought they would make an especially good-looking pair, she felt otherwise. She closed him out immediately without a chance for communication. Her thought: he was just out of her league.
According to the matching hypothesis (Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, & Rottman, 1966), each of us walks around with an idea of how socially desirable we are (i.e., how good of a catch we are), and we tend to look for partners who are similar to us in social desirability. The idea is that if we pursue someone similar to us, we have a better chance at a good outcome.
However, according to recent research with actual online daters, the matching hypothesis may not be entirely supported (Taylor, Fiore, Mendelsohn, & Cheshire, 2011). For example, when initiating contact, both men and women in this study contacted people who were more physically attractive than themselves. Of course, physical attractiveness is just a part of one's self-concept, so researchers conducted 2 more studies.
Find out why dating outside of your league could work for you! Read the rest of the article at eHarmony Labs: Is He (Or She) Too Good For You?
Written by Dr. Erina Lee, Senior Research Scientist, for eHarmony. Image courtesy of imagesdisney.com.
More from eHarmony:
- Why You Shouldn't Settle
- Forbidden Fruit: The Cause and Effects of Temptation
- 14 Ways To Quit Nagging & Save Your Relationship
This article was originally published at . Reprinted with permission from the author.