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Matching Hypothesis

Matching hypothesis definition.

The matching hypothesis refers to the proposition that people are attracted to and form relationships with individuals who resemble them on a variety of attributes, including demographic characteristics (e.g., age, ethnicity, and education level), personality traits, attitudes and values, and even physical attributes (e.g., attractiveness).

Background and Importance of Matching Hypothesis

Evidence for Matching Hypothesis

There is ample evidence in support of the matching hypothesis in the realm of interpersonal attraction and friendship formation. Not only do people overwhelmingly prefer to interact with similar others, but a person’s friends and associates are more likely to resemble that person on virtually every dimension examined, both positive and negative.

The evidence is mixed in the realm of romantic attraction and mate selection. There is definitely a tendency for men and women to marry spouses who resemble them. Researchers have found extensive similarity between marital partners on characteristics such as age, race, ethnicity, education level, socioeconomic status, religion, and physical attractiveness as well as on a host of personality traits and cognitive abilities. This well-documented tendency for similar individuals to marry is commonly referred to as homogamy or assortment.

The fact that people tend to end up with romantic partners who resemble them, however, does not necessarily mean that they prefer similar over dissimilar mates. There is evidence, particularly with respect to the characteristic of physical attractiveness, that both men and women actually prefer the most attractive partner possible. However, although people might ideally want a partner with highly desirable features, they might not possess enough desirable attributes themselves to be able to attract that individual. Because people seek the best possible mate but are constrained by their own assets, the process of romantic partner selection thus inevitably results in the pairing of individuals with similar characteristics.

Nonetheless, sufficient evidence supports the matching hypothesis to negate the old adage that “opposites attract.” They typically do not.

References:

• Berscheid, E., & Reis, H. T. (1998). Attraction and close relationships. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 193-281). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Kalick, S. M., & Hamilton, T. E. (1996). The matching hypothesis re-examined. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 673-682.
• Murstein, B. I. (1980). Mate selection in the 1970s. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42, 777-792.

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Matching hypothesis explained

The matching hypothesis (also known as the matching phenomenon ) argues that people are more likely to form and succeed in a committed relationship with someone who is equally socially desirable, typically in the form of physical attraction. [1] The hypothesis is derived from the discipline of social psychology and was first proposed by American social psychologist Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues in 1966. [2]

Successful couples of differing physical attractiveness may be together due to other matching variables that compensate for the difference in attractiveness. [3] For instance, some men with wealth and status desire younger, more attractive women. Some women are more likely to overlook physical attractiveness for men who possess wealth and status. [4]

It is also similar to some of the theorems outlined in uncertainty reduction theory , from the post-positivist discipline of communication studies . These theorems include constructs of nonverbal expression, perceived similarity, liking, information seeking, and intimacy, and their correlations to one another. [5]

Walster et al. (1966)

Walster advertised a "Computer Match Dance". 752 student participants were rated on physical attractiveness by four independent judges, as a measure of social desirability. Participants were told to fill in a questionnaire for the purposes of computer matching based on similarity. Instead, participants were randomly paired, except no man was paired with a taller woman. During an intermission of the dance, participants were asked to assess their date. People with higher ratings were found to have more harsh judgment of their dates. Furthermore, higher levels of attractiveness indicated lower levels of satisfaction with their pairing, even when they were on the same level. It was also found that both men and women were more satisfied with their dates if their dates had high levels of attractiveness. Physical attractiveness was found to be the most important factor in enjoying the date and whether or not they would sleep with them when propositioned. It was more important than intelligence and personality.

One criticism Walster assigned to the study was that the four judges who assigned the attractiveness ratings to the participants had very brief interactions with them. Longer exposure may have changed the attraction ratings. In a follow-up of the experiment, it was found that couples were more likely to continue interacting if they held similar attraction ratings.

Walster and Walster (1971)

Walster and Walster ran a follow-up to the Computer Dance, but instead allowed participants to meet beforehand in order to give them greater chance to interact and think about their ideal qualities in a partner. The study had greater ecological validity than the original study, and the finding was that partners that were similar in terms of physical attractiveness expressed the most liking for each other – a finding that supports the matching hypothesis. [6]

Murstein (1972)

Murstein also found evidence that supported the matching hypothesis. Photos of 197 couples in various statuses of relationship (from casually dating to married), were rated in terms of attractiveness by eight judges. Each person was photographed separately. The judges did not know which photographs went together within romantic partnerships. The ratings from the judges supported the matching hypothesis. [7]

Self-perception and perception of the partner were included in the first round of the study; however, in the later rounds they were removed, as partners not only rated themselves unrealistically high, but their partners even higher.

Huston (1973)

Huston argued that the evidence for the matching hypothesis didn't come from matching but instead on the tendency of people to avoid rejection hence choosing someone similarly attractive to themselves, to avoid being rejected by someone more attractive than themselves. Huston attempted to prove this by showing participants photos of people who had already indicated that they would accept the participant as a partner. The participant usually chose the person rated as most attractive; however, the study has very flawed ecological validity as the relationship was certain, and in real life people wouldn't be certain hence are still more likely to choose someone of equal attractiveness to avoid possible rejection. [8]

White (1980)

White conducted a study on 123 dating couples at UCLA . He stated that good physical matches may be conducive to good relationships. The study reported that partners most similar in physical attractiveness were found to rate themselves happier and report deeper feelings of love. [9]

The study also supported that some, especially men, view relationships as a marketplace. If the partnership is weak, an individual may devalue it if they have many friends of the opposite sex who are more attractive. They may look at the situation as having more options present that are more appealing. At the same time, if the relationship is strong, they may value the relationship more because they are passing up on these opportunities in order to remain in the relationship.

Brown (1986)

Brown argued for the matching hypothesis, but maintained that it results from a learned sense of what is "fitting" – we adjust our expectation of a partner in line with what we believe we have to offer others, instead of a fear of rejection. [10]

Garcia and Khersonsky (1996)

Garcia and Khersonsky studied this effect and how others view matching and non-matching couples. Participants viewed photos of couples who matched or did not match in physical attractiveness and completed a questionnaire. The questionnaire included ratings of how satisfied the couples appear in their current relationship, their potential marital satisfaction, how likely is it that they will break up and how likely it is that they will be good parents. Results showed that the attractive couple was rated as currently more satisfied than the non-matching couple, where the male was more attractive than the female. Additionally, the unattractive male was rated as more satisfied (currently and marital) than the attractive female in the non-matching couple. The attractive woman was also rated as more satisfied (currently and marital) in the attractive couple. [11]

Shaw Taylor et al. (2011)

Shaw Taylor performed a series of studies involving the matching hypothesis in online dating. In one of the studies, the attractiveness of 60 males and 60 females were measured and their interactions were monitored. The people with whom they interacted were then monitored to see who they interacted with, and returned messages to. What they found was different from the original construct of matching. People contacted others who were significantly more attractive than they were. However it was found that the person was more likely to reply if they were closer to the same level of attractiveness. This study supported matching but not as something that is intentional. [12]

Other studies

Further evidence supporting the matching hypothesis was found by:

• Berscheid and Dion (1974) [13]
• Berscheid and Walster et al. (1974) [14]
• Price and Vandenberg stated that "the matching phenomenon [of physical attractiveness between marriage partners] is stable within and across generations". [15]
• "Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market." — Erich Fromm [16]
• Assortative mating
• Uncertainty reduction theory

Notes and References

• Feingold. Alan. Matching for attractiveness in romantic partners and same-sex friends: A meta-analysis and theoretical critique.. Psychological Bulletin. 1 January 1988. 104. 2. 226–235. 10.1037/0033-2909.104.2.226.
• Walster, E., Aronson, V., Abrahams, D., & Rottman, L. (1966). Importance of physical attractiveness in dating behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(5), 508-516.
• Book: Myers, David G.. Social psychology. 2009. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. New York. 9780073370668. 10th.
• Book: Elizabeth A. Minton, Lynn R. Khale. Belief Systems, Religion, and Behavioral Economics. 2014. New York. Business Expert Press LLC. 978-1-60649-704-3.
• Berger. Charles R.. Calabrese, Richard J.. Some Exploration in Initial Interaction and Beyond: Toward a Developmental Theory of Interpersonal Communication. Human Communication Research. 1 January 1975. 1. 2. 99–112. 10.1111/j.1468-2958.1975.tb00258.x.
• Berscheid. Ellen. Dion, Karen. Walster, Elaine. Walster, G.William. Physical attractiveness and dating choice: A test of the matching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 1 March 1971. 7. 2. 173–189. 10.1016/0022-1031(71)90065-5.
• Murstein. Bernard I.. Physical attractiveness and marital choice.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1 January 1972. 22. 1. 8–12. 10.1037/h0032394. 5013362.
• Huston. Ted L.. Ambiguity of acceptance, social desirability, and dating choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 1 January 1973. 9. 1. 32–42. 10.1016/0022-1031(73)90060-7.
• White. Gregory L.. Physical attractiveness and courtship progress.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1 January 1980. 39. 4. 660–668. 10.1037/0022-3514.39.4.660.
• Book: Brown, Roger. Social psychology, the second edition. 1986. Free Press. New York. 9780029083000. 2nd.
• Garcia & Khersonsky. 'They make a lovely couple': Perceptions of couple attractiveness.. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality. 1996. 11. 4. 667–682.
• Shaw Taylor. L.. Fiore, A. T.. Mendelsohn, G. A.. Cheshire, C.. "Out of My League": A Real-World Test of the Matching Hypothesis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 1 June 2011. 37. 7. 942–954. 10.1177/0146167211409947. 21632966.
• Dion. Karen K.. Berscheid, Ellen. Physical Attractiveness and Peer Perception Among Children. Sociometry. 1 March 1974. 37. 1. 1–12. 10.2307/2786463. 2786463.
• Berscheid. E. Walster, E. Physical Attractiveness. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. 1974. 7. 157–215. Academic Press. New York. 10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60037-4. 9780120152070.
• Price, Richard A.; Vandenberg, Steven G.; Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol 5(3), Jul, 1979. pp. 398-400.
• The Sane Society, 1955

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License . It uses material from the Wikipedia article " Matching hypothesis ".

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The matching hypothesis

The Matching Hypothesis

Introduction

There are many factors involved in the formation of relationships, proximity, exposure and family, similarity, physical attractiveness, complementarily, competence and reciprocal liking. In this investigation, the research will explore attractiveness, specifically the match hypothesis.

 Zuckerman et al (1995) reported that the more attractive a person seemed to be, the more positive was another’s overall impression of that person.

Symons (1979) showed that a woman’s physical health, age, and uniqueness are attractive to men whereas a man’s status, height, skills, and abilities are attractive to women. Berry and Miller (2001) found that males rated physical attractiveness as the best predictor for higher quality interactions with woman, while woman rated sociability as the most important factor for men.

A study was carried out by Walster et al in 1966 known as the ‘computer dance study’. 752 ’freshers’ took part. First they were told to fill in a questionnaire, after which they were told that they had been allocated an ideal partner for the evening of the dance. These pairings however, had been made at random on basis of their physical attractiveness. Students were asked how much they liked their date and if they wanted to see them again. They found that physical attractiveness was the single biggest predictor of how much each date had been liked by both male and the female participants. The desire of another date was determined by the attractiveness of the female, irrespective of the attractiveness of the male.

When we see a person in the street we automatically rate that person’s attractiveness, whether we do it consciously or unconsciously. The matching hypothesis is a popular psychological theory proposed by Walster et al. 1966, on what causes people to be attracted to their partners. It claims that people are more likely to form long- lasting relationships with people who are roughly equally as physically attractive as themselves. This investigation is going to replicate this study.

‘The matching phenomenon of physical attraction between marriage partners is stable within and across generations’, Price and Vandenberg 1979.

Several studies have tested the matching hypothesis. These studies generally show that people rated as being of high, low or average attractiveness tend to choose partners of a corresponding level of attractiveness.

Several studies have been carried out that explore this field of interest for, Murstein (1972) who also supports the matching hypothesis did a study with photographs of the faces of ‘steady or engaged’ couples were compared with random couples. The real couples were consistently judged to be more similar to each other in levels of physical attractiveness than the random pairs. Murstein summarised the findings of the study as: ‘Individuals with equal market value for physical attractiveness are more likely to associate in an intimate relationship such as engagement that individuals with disparate values.’

In simple terms, he found that people with roughly equal attractiveness are more likely to establish an intimate relationship, than if one person out of the couple was seen as being ‘unattractive’ and the other ‘attractive’.

This investigation focuses on couples’ separate attractiveness and their attractiveness as a couple, analysing singular attractiveness and coupled attractiveness.

The aim of the study is to investigate the matching hypothesis and to test whether there is a positive correlation between the scores of perceived attractiveness of the male and female of the married couples and also as a couple. This investigation differs to previous studies carried out in this area of interest, as the photographs are not separated and the males and females are rated separately in terms of attractiveness. Participants were also asked to rate the photos as a couple.

The hypothesis:

There would be a positive correlation between participants perceived scores of attractiveness of photographs of married couples.

Null hypothesis:

There would be no correlation between participants perceived scores of attractiveness of photographs of married couples.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The method chosen for this study was a correlational research method, as a relationship between the two variables was being investigated. The co-variance is the male and female scores. All the photos used throughout the procedure are obtained from articles from a local newspaper. After the photos are obtained, record sheets will be produced on which the participants will rate the couples. The photos used will be kept together (i.e. they will not be cut into separate male and female sections) for the simple reason that I am also asking the question; do the couples match each other? This would be impossible to do so if the photographs were separated. This also makes my investigation more original. The participants will then be presented with forms like the record sheet (appendix). Cause and analysis was the appropriate method for this investigation as it provides information on the strength of a relationship between specific variables.

The gender of the participants may affect how attractive they perceive the male/ female and the couple as a whole, so an equal number of male and female participants were chosen (10 male and 10 female) through an opportunist sample. I will take the following into account:

• The light in the room- a dull light may distort the photos.
• I must make sure participants are not distracted whilst carrying out the investigation.
• The temperature of the room the study is carried out in which will be about 19-21 degrees. The place has to comfortable with decent lighting and distraction free. The best place to achieve all this is the library, as all these factors are eliminated due to the common environment of a library.
• The colour of photos (black and white or colour) - A low quality photograph may cause bias as it may create a false image of the people and/ or person to overcome this I will only use colour photos on the same quality paper- to eliminate any possibility of bias through quality
• The size of photos- if the photographs are not big enough, it will be difficult for participants to rate people in terms of attractiveness if they cannot see them properly therefore have each photo as a similar size- if one photograph of one couple is considerably bigger than another it will ultimately make the investigation biased.
• Have an equal number of male and female participants- To eliminate any gender bias as some male participants may find it hard to rate male attractiveness.
• The overall shape of someone may have an effect on their attractiveness thus I will only use photos that show the upper part of the couples bodies.- much research has already been carried out studding the attractiveness of people as a whole (i.e. full length photographs), this will make the investigation more original and less biased as all the couples will only have face photos.

The materials I will be using are:

• Paper- forms, instead of using 1 form per person, I will be using one form per couple for participants to fill in.
• Photographs

Participants

20 participants will be drawn from the library using opportunist sample. There will be 10 male participants and 10 female participants to eliminate gender bias and also to explore gender differences in attractiveness rating.

The target participants are males and females of 16-18 year old.

The researcher, me is a 17 year old 6 th  form student from a Northeast School. The participants are all from Newcastle upon Tyne, they were chosen as they were using the school library at the time of the investigation been carried out.

Found 5 photographs of couples from a local newspaper, made sure they were all of similar size, in black and white. Next forms produced with the photos on the back of the score sheet, with a rank of 1-10 (10 being the highest- most attractive, see appendix). There is an equal amount of participants, made sure the study was carried out in a suitable area with an equal number of male and female participants taking part (If it is a mix gender study).

When participating in the investigation, the participants were informed exactly what to do, they were briefed and finally debriefed. There will be a set of instructions to go with the briefing stage.

• Your task is to rate each person in the couple on their attractiveness.
• People’s attractiveness is rated on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest.
• You are then, on sheet number 2, to state if you think the couples suit each other as a couple.
• You will do this by placing a Y (yes) or an N (no) next to the number of the couple’s photographs.

Before participating, people will be given a sheet of paper that briefs them about what kind of investigation they are partaking in, below is what it will say:

“You are now about to participate in a psychological study, you have the right to withdraw at any time during this investigation. If you do choose to withdraw, all evidence of your participation in this experiment will be destroyed. None of the data collected will be traceable back to you”

After their contribution to my investigation, each participant will be debriefed. Again they will be handed a piece of paper that briefly states what I was investigating:

Debriefing:

“You have just finished partaking in my psychological investigation, you still have the right to withdraw any information you have given. My investigation was looking into the attractiveness of couples and the matching hypothesis. Remember none of the data I have collected can be traceable back to you, thank you for taking part’

The data was analysed using influential statistics. The test used was the Spearman’s Rank Order Correlation Coefficient test. This test was selected as it is a two sample test of correlation for use with data that has an ratio level of measurement because they were rated scale 1-10 then converted to ordinal data and was rank ordered (see appendix).

A 5% level of significance was selected as this represents the balance between making a type one and type two error. A type one error being when the null hypothesis is rejected even if it is true, and the probability of making an error like it is equal to the level of significance- 5%. A type two error is when a null hypothesis is reserved when it is actually wrong.

Statistical summary:

The critical value of rs is 0.9 the critical value of rs for a directional hypothesis at the 5% significant level where n= 5, my value from the spearman’s rank was 1.0. This shows a strong positive correlation. As the observed value is higher than the critical value, the alternative hypothesis is accepted, and the null hypothesis is rejected. It can be concluded that any differences in results are not due to chance alone.

A table to show the overall ratings for each person

(Descriptive stats over the page)

Descriptive statistics:

A table to show the mean scores of each person

A bar chart to show:

Matching hypothesis results:

After participants rated the attractiveness of each couple, they also answered a question ‘Do the couples match?’ (See appendix). The participants either answered ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for each couple. The table above shows the results. For couple 3, all participants said ‘Yes’, couple 1 match the least according to the participants.

Discussion:

Aim of research:

The aim of this investigation was to find out if couples are rated as having similar attractiveness, and if they are suited as a couple.

The hypothesis was that male and female couples would be rated as having similar attractiveness by showing a photograph of the couple and asking participants to rate them separately in terms of attractiveness. This was found true, although the results are not significant, the results obtained did account for the research found in the introduction.

The investigation seemed to follow certain patterns; this lead to the expansion of the study. One pattern found was the common pattern that was the ranking for males in the photos by male participants, and the ranking for females in the photos by the female participants. What was discovered was that males continuously rank other males much lower than they rank the females in the photographs, for example male number  2 rated the male in photograph 1 only 2 points, whereas he rated the female of the couple 8 points. For female participants the opposite is true with a couple of anomalies. For example, on photograph 2, 2 female participants number 19 rated the male as 7 however only rates the female 5, unlike most female participants who consistently ranked the female higher than the male.

Looking at the mean scores (see results) compared to the male participant scores for each male (see appendix) the difference can sometimes be quite considerable. When being asked to rate the males in the photographs, male participants seemed to feel strange about rating them high, even a fair ranking appeared extremely difficult for them to do. Only on photograph 4 did they seem to rate the male in conjunction with the score they gave to the female of that couple (see appendix).

This could be for a number of reasons; firstly, males may have more confidence in their physical attractiveness than females, maybe due to the media focusing on such trivial matters as ‘celebrity diets’. Also males may feel uneasy about judging another male’s attractiveness as they might then be referred to as ‘gay’ in today’s society.

Moving onto the female participants, who (bar 2 photographs) rated the female in the couple higher than the males. It seems socially acceptable for a female to say ‘oh yeah she’s pretty’, however for a male to acknowledge another man’s attractiveness would be frowned upon, in that they would be perceived as holding homosexual tendencies, or this may be due to them being oblivious to what woman find attractive in men.

There are a number of additional factors that might have caused the females to be perceived as more attractive than the males. For example, the photographs of the couples were of their wedding day. This would make both the bride and the groom, however specially the bride, look more attractive. This is because on wedding days the bride is especially groomed to look her best- and so usually looks much better than that in everyday life. This is, a confounding variable, as she is perceived to look more attractive than she actually is.

Another factor that I discovered when studying the matching hypothesis was that the couples who were rated lower received more marks (see appendix) for whether they suited each other or not. Couple number 3 who received an overall ranking of 119 (lowest ranking) received 20 points (highest possible score) for the matching hypothesis. Also couple 5 with 200 points (second highest score) received 10 marks for the matching hypothesis (second lowest).

Relationship to background research

The results gained in this investigation support Murstein’s 1972 research where comparison of actual couples and random couples were judged on attractiveness. The research obtained in this investigation also found that couples are rated as having similar attractiveness.

From the investigation it was determined that the perceived level of physical attractiveness of females is far greater than the perceived level of attractiveness of males. There are many studies that give reasons for this. For example, women usually chose partners that are less attractive than they are. Huston (1973) suggested that people were afraid of being rejected by their prospective partners. They deliberately choose someone who is similar to them, not because they find them most attractive, but because they don’t want to be rejected.

Limitations and modifications

The photographs I used were not as good as they should have been for this particular investigation of attraction because they were black and white and also not good quality photos. To overcome this problem, I would only use large photographs, around 5x5cm for future investigation. I would also use more photos, to make it a more specific test and also to make my results more significant to this area of psychology. I would use approximately 10 photos, as it would give an easy average to work with. Even though, the photographs were not as good as they should have been, there might have been a more major reason for my results. People may rate attractiveness in a totally different way. For example a person may be attracted to someone because of their body language rather than their physical attractiveness. I would conquer this by video taping a couple on their wedding day and ask participants to judge their attractiveness by more factors than just physical attractiveness.

Suggestions for further research

My hypothesis was that there would be a positive correlation between participants perceived scores of attractiveness of photographs of married couples.

For further research into this area of psychology, I would tape several couples on their wedding day and (with their consent) get participants to rate them on many different aspects of attractiveness. Factors such as; proximity, body language, facial features, humour etc. would also be taken into consideration, with the investigation focusing on which of these would be the ultimate reason why people are attracted to others. My hypothesis would be that the more attracted the couples are to each other the longer their marriage would last. This includes factors such as proximity, body language, facial features, humour etc would be the factors to observe. For example the more body language they have towards each other it increases the rate of attraction between them.

From this investigation you can extract the idea that it’s not the most attractive who gets the most partner, everyone finds a partner similar to their own attractiveness.

Bibliography:

MURSTEIN,B.I.(1972) Physical attractiveness and martial choice.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 22,8-12.

PRICE, R.A & VANDENBERG, S.G (1979) Matching for physical attractiveness in married couples. Personality and Social Psychology. Bulltin, 5, 398-400 .

WALSTER,E. ARONSON, E.&ABRAHAM, D. & ROTTMAN, L.. (1966)

Importance of physical attractiveness in dating behaviour.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 4, 508-516.

SYMONS,D.(1979) The Evoultion of Human Sexuality. NEW YORK:

Oxford University Press.

MILLER,G.F. (1998) How mate choice shaped human nature: A review of sexual selection and human evolution. In C.Crwford &D.Krebs

(Eds) Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, Mahwah, NJ:Erlaum.

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Relationships: Physical Attractiveness

Last updated 8 Apr 2018

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Psychologists have long noticed that physical attractiveness plays a major part in the formation of relationships, and proposed various explanations of why this is the case.

Some of these explanations are based on evolutionary theory, such as the idea that people with symmetrical faces are more often viewed as more attractive because it is a sign of health and genetic fitness.

In this study note social psychological explanations of why attractiveness is so important for both short-term and long-term relationships are examined.

Halo Effect and Matching Hypothesis

One explanation for the importance of attractiveness is the  halo effect .

The halo effect  is the idea that people who are judged to be attractive are typically perceived in a positive light. For example, Dion et al. (1972) found that attractive people are consistently rated as successful, kind and sociable when compared with unattractive people. This means that we not only believe that good-looking people are more physically attractive, we expect them to have other desirable characteristics as well and tend to behave more positively towards them.

However, in real life people also use common sense to estimate whether a prospective partner will find us attractive, and therefore they don't automatically go for the most attractive person around, but choose a partner who matches their own level of physical attractiveness. This is referred to as the matching hypothesis. 

According to the matching hypothesis , a person’s choice of partner is a balance between a desire to have the most physically attractive partner possible and their wish to avoid being rejected by someone who is 'way out of their league'.  As a result, people often settle for a partner who has roughly the same level of physical attractiveness.

Research Examining Physical Attractiveness

Exam Hint: Research studies can be presented as both knowledge and evaluation in the exam; however, it is important that students are clear with how they are using research in their answer.

The idea of halo effect was supported by Palmer and Peterson (2012), who asked participants to rate attractive and unattractive people in terms of how politically competent and knowledgeable they believed them to be. It was found that attractive people were consistently rated higher on these characteristics compared to unattractive ones.

Original research into the matching hypothesis was conducted by Elaine Walster (who first proposed the matching hypothesis) and her colleagues in 1966 .  They invited 752 first-year students at the University of Minnesota to attend a dance party. They were randomly matched to a partner; however, when students were picking up their tickets, they were secretly judged by a panel in terms of attractiveness. During the intervals at the dance party, and 4 to 6 months later, students were asked whether they found their partner attractive and whether they would like to go on a second date with them. Contrary to the matching hypothesis predictions, students expressed higher appreciation of their partner if the partner was attractive, regardless of their own level of attractiveness.

However, Feingold (1988) found supportive evidence for the matching hypothesis by carrying out a meta-analysis of 17 studies using real-life couples. He established a strong correlation between the partners’ ratings of attractiveness, just as predicted by the matching hypothesis.

Evaluation of Physical Attractiveness

Exam Hint: The first evaluation point demonstrates how research (see above) can be used to write effective evaluation.

(1) The matching hypothesis is to some extent supported by research. For example, Feingold (1988) conducted a meta-analysis of 17 studies, and found a strong correlation between partners’ ratings of attractiveness. This shows that people tend to choose a partner who has a similar level of physical attractiveness to themselves, just as the matching hypothesis predicts.

(2) However, in addition to Walster et al.’s original study that failed to support the hypothesis, other research has also failed to provide conclusive evidence for matching hypothesis. For example, Taylor et al. (2011) investigated the activity log on a dating website and found that website users were more likely to try and arrange a meeting with a potential partner who was more physically attractive than them. These findings contradict the matching hypothesis, as according to its predictions, website users should seek more dates with a person who is similar in terms of attractiveness, because it provides them with a better chance of being accepted by a potential partner.

(3) There are significant individual differences in terms of the importance that people place on physical attractiveness in terms of relationships. Towhey (1979) gave participants photos of strangers and some biographical information about them; participants were asked to rate how much they liked the people on photographs. Towhey found that physical attractiveness was more important for participants who displayed sexist attitudes (measured by a specially designed questionnaire). This suggests that, depending on the individual, physical appearance may or may not be a significant factor in attractiveness, while the matching hypothesis suggests it is always the main one.

(4) Another weakness of the matching hypothesis is that it mainly applies to short-term relationships. However, when choosing a partner for long-term relationships, people tend to focus more on similarity of values and needs satisfaction, rather than physical attractiveness. This questions the validity of the matching hypothesis, as it will only describe a limited number of relationships. Furthermore, the matching hypothesis ignores the fact that people may compensate for the lack of physical attractiveness with other qualities, such as intellect or sociability. This compensation explains repeatedly occurring examples of older, less attractive men being married to attractive younger women; something that the matching hypothesis cannot account for.

Evaluation: Issues & Debates

Physical attractiveness seems to be an important factor in forming relationships across cultures. For example, Cunningham et al. (1995) found that white, Asian and Hispanic males, despite being from different cultures, rated females with prominent cheekbones, small noses and large eyes as highly attractive. This universality of findings suggests that using attractiveness as a decisive factor in choosing a partner might be a genetically reproduced mechanism, aiding sexual selection. This gives support to the nature side of nature-nurture debate as it shows that human behaviour is mainly a result of biological rather than environmental influences.

On the other hand, the matching hypothesis may be suffering from a beta-bias, as it assumes that men and women are very similar in their view of the importance of physical attractiveness. Research, however, suggests that this may not be the case. For example, Meltzer et al. (2014) found that men rate their long-term relationships more satisfying if their partner is physically attractive, while for women their partner’s attractiveness didn’t have a significant impact on relationship satisfaction. This shows that there are significant gender differences in how important appearance is for attraction.

The matching hypothesis is a theory that is based on a nomothetic approach to studying human behaviour. It tries to generate behavioural laws applicable to all people; however, as studies above suggest, there are significant individual differences in the importance of physical attractiveness to one’s choice of a partner. Therefore, explanations based on the idiographic approach (studying individual cases in detail, without trying to generate universal rules) may be more appropriate for studying romantic relationships.

• Relationships
• Matching Hypothesis
• Halo effect

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MATCHING HYPOTHESIS

is a psychological theory which implies relationships are formed between two people who equal or are very similar in terms of attractiveness.

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Out of My League: A Professor Looks at Dating’s ‘Matching Hypothesis’

February 13, 2014 

Berkeley I School Professor Coye Cheshire

You’ve undoubtedly heard it before: don’t date someone who’s “out of your league.” Whether or not this is good advice, it’s a commonly accepted fact that people tend to gravitate toward partners of a similar social worth. There’s even a theory that says just that, called “the matching hypothesis,” which you probably remember from your Psych 101 class. People tend to seek out partners of a similar level of social desirability, not just in terms of physical attractiveness but also in terms of other qualities, like intelligence and personality.

The matching hypothesis is almost conventional wisdom, but large-scale online dating data gave four UC Berkeley researchers a new way to evaluate its claims.

In the mid-2000s, UC Berkeley School of Information professor  Coye Cheshire , former Ph.D. student  Andrew T. Fiore , along with Lindsay Shaw Taylor and G.A. Mendelsohn from the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology began to use large-scale data to investigate a variety of questions about romantic relationship formation in online settings. As they began to accumulate enormous amounts of data, the emerging field of data science gave them the ability to test a variety of different research questions—including the long-held tenets of the matching hypothesis. With the advent of online dating sites, researchers suddenly had a wealth of relationship data at their fingertips, and data science offered them the tools to look at this large-scale data with a critical eye.

There was certainly a lot to look at. For starters, it’s a common misconception that the matching hypothesis is about people pairing off based on their physical attractiveness. This isn’t actually the case; instead, Walster et al. (1966) posited that individuals are likely to partner up based on similar levels of self-assessed self-worth, asking the specific question of whether people select partners of “similar social worth.”

Since inherent self-worth is tricky to measure, a reductionist view of the matching hypothesis has led physical attractiveness to stand in for that self-perceived self-worth over the years. In fact, the attractiveness quotient is what most people tend to think of now when they hear the term “s/he’s out of your league.” Due to these misconceptions and the complexity of their research questions, Cheshire and his team opted to break the problem into four experiments:

• EXPERIMENT ONE:  Are one’s feelings of self-worth correlated with the social desirability of target partners?
• EXPERIMENT TWO:  Does a person’s physical attractiveness correlate with the physical attractiveness of the people they contact?
• EXPERIMENT THREE:  Does the popularity of online dating site members (as measured by unsolicited messages received) correlate with how desirable they judge their partners to be? Does their popularity correlate with their partner’s popularity? Do one’s feelings of self-worth correlate with those of people s/he communicates with?
• EXPERIMENT FOUR:  Do more popular individuals select others whose popularity matches their own? Are they selected by this group as well?

What was the end result? As it turns out, humans are apt to date “out of our league”…or at least attempt to. Think of the online dating site population as a virtual bar that spans the entire United States; as you might guess from your own experience, an initiator’s physical attractiveness is not directly correlated to the attractiveness of those they choose to contact. Instead, users tend to contact people who are  more  attractive than themselves. However, other portions of this experiment showed that individuals voluntarily selected similarly desirable partners from the very beginning of the dating process, demonstrating that part of the traditional matching hypothesis (partnering based on self-worth) does hold true. Different ways of assessing social value led to differing conclusions for these researchers.

The design of this experiment helped to measure a broader conception of self-worth and social worth on multiple dimensions, extending beyond just physical attractiveness. This is something that has been overly simplified in the field of psychology, and data science techniques applied to online dating data presented a unique way to use large-scale analyses to go back and reassess a long-held truth.

This was a complex, multi-level study, which could only be made possible by a collection of large-scale data and flexible research methodologies. Thanks to the volume of data and the variety of tools at their disposal, researchers have the ability to combine methodologies to tackle a problem from different angles, as the UC Berkeley team did upon discovering that many equate worth with attractiveness.

The results of the UC Berkeley team’s experiments are interesting, but they hold an even deeper meaning for prospective data scientists. With the massive amounts of data and tools we currently have at our disposal, it’s becoming apparent that researchers now have the ability to go back and test fundamental assumptions in academic fields like psychology.

What does this mean? Even those data scientists who don’t plan to work in academia now have the ability to add something to the public dialogue. Testing the matching hypothesis was a boon to both industry and academia; by partnering with an online dating site, Cheshire and his fellow researchers were able to challenge long-held truths while at the same time working to understand some of the underlying social mechanics of relationship formation in a thriving business. The benefits of this research are twofold: it can help with future designs in online dating systems, while the data collection reveals different things of great interest to academic researchers.

Data science presents an interesting crossroads for social research. While the aforementioned research scholars are not necessarily the ones at work designing systems in the private sector to collect data, data scientists themselves are able to get right in the thick of things to build, collect, and analyze data, all while redirecting research to answer new questions that arise in the course of an experiment.

This is exactly why collaborations between industry and academia are important—research centers like Walmart Labs and Target labs are eager to work with academic researchers who can bring the tools and knowledge of data science and complex social systems to bear on industrial experiments. By collecting data for practical, pragmatic purposes, the two industries can then review standard assumptions, giving back more to society than just an increase in Click-Through Rate (CTR) to any one company. Instead, alliances between academia and industry help researchers understand fundamental social processes, leaving everyone better off.

To find out more about this study, view Taylor, Fiore, Mendelsohn, and Cheshire’s original paper:  “‘Out of My League’: A Real-World Test of the Matching Hypothesis.” (PDF, 533kb)

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Open Education Sociology Dictionary

matching hypothesis

Table of Contents

Definition of Matching Hypothesis

( noun ) The theory that people select romantic and sexual partners who have similar statuses such as physical attraction and social class.

Matching Hypothesis Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification : match·ing hy·poth·e·sis

Audio Pronunciation

Phonetic Spelling

• American English – /mAch-ing hie-pAHth-uh-suhs/
• British English – /mAch-ing hie-pOth-i-sis/

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /ˈmæʧɪŋ haɪˈpɑθəsəs/
• British English – /ˈmæʧɪŋ haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/

Usage Notes

• Plural:  matching hypotheses
• A type of homogamy.
• Also called matching phenomenon .

Additional Information

• Sex and Gender Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
• Word origin of “match” and “hypothesis” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Rosenblum, Karen Elaine, and Toni-Michelle Travis. 2016.  The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability . 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Related Terms

• ascribed status
• discrimination

Works Consulted

Branscombe, Nyla R., and Robert A. Baron. 2017. Social Psychology . 14th ed. Harlow, England: Pearson.

Encyclopædia Britannica. (N.d.)  Britannica Digital Learning . ( https://britannicalearn.com/ ).

Wikipedia contributors. (N.d.) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia . Wikimedia Foundation. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/ ).

Cite the Definition of Matching Hypothesis

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2016. “matching hypothesis.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary . Retrieved July 2, 2024 ( https://sociologydictionary.org/matching-hypothesis/ ).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

matching hypothesis. (2016). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary . Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/matching-hypothesis/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2016. “matching hypothesis.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary . Accessed July 2, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/matching-hypothesis/ .

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“matching hypothesis.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary . Ed. Kenton Bell. 2016. Web. 2 Jul. 2024. < https://sociologydictionary.org/matching-hypothesis/ >.

Which of the Following Statements Is Consistent with the Prototype

Question 67

Which of the following statements is consistent with the prototype matching hypothesis?

A) I believe that leaders should be assertive,agentic,task-oriented,and dominant. B) I expect leaders to be tall,so tend to more readily follow the lead of tall people. C) I believe that leaders should be accommodative,empathic,and supportive of others. D) I expect leaders to be agentic,so I follow the lead of supportive,warm,and relational leaders. E) I believe that men make better leaders than women do.

Correct Answer:

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