Many couples look similar to one another. Reasons for this phenomenon may include in-group bias, implicit egotism, the familiarity effect, and sexual imprinting. However, there are individual differences in attraction to self-resembling partners.
Sometimes couples don't really look like each other—until later in life. Researchers collected images of spouses as newlyweds and 25 years later. They found that spouses became more similar in looks over time, and that this increase in similarity predicted greater relationship quality.
Familiarity effect.
People may prefer those who look like them due to the familiarity effect, or the tendency to like familiar stimuli.
It's a surprisingly common occurrence between couples who've been together for years, and it's likely the result of something called empathetic mimicry, which happens when people who share a strong bond – and consequently experience a higher degree of empathy for one another – mirror each other's expressions, leading ...
In one 2013 study in PLOS ONE journal, people were shown edited images of their partners' faces that included features from either a stranger's face or their own. Overall, people consistently preferred the edited face that most closely looked like their own.
Physical Attractiveness Is More Important Than We Think
And when we make real-life dating and mating decisions, research indicates, physical appearance dominates: We choose to pursue relationships with those who are attractive to us (see Luo and Zhang, 2009; Kurzban and Weeden, 2005; Thao et al., 2010).
Psychologists study two different versions of soulmates to develop a proper analysis. Soulmates who have been together for years can catch similar lifestyles, hobbies, diets, and interests. These interests may shape their physique and muscle proportion, making both partners look similar.
"Spouses' faces are similar but do not converge with time. This brings facial appearance in line with other traits – such as interests, personality, intelligence, attitudes, values, and well-being – which show initial similarity but do not converge over time."
Number of years spent together
Robert Zajonc, a social psychologist, compared photographs of couples from before they got married with those taken 25 years later. His study showed that even if a husband and wife had no facial similarities at all, some 25 years later they looked surprisingly alike.
Lookalike partners may also be drawn to each other, subliminally, because of their genes. Plenty of studies have found that spouses tend to be more genetically similar than strangers, sharing predictors of everything from height to educational attainment.
People are more attracted to and more trusting of those who look like them, a new study found. Maybe opposites don't attract — but “doppelbangers” do.
Common attributes that come to mind include intelligence, kindness, sense of humor, attractiveness, or reliability. No matter what we think we're looking for in a partner, the people we wind up choosing don't necessarily match our criteria for an ideal companion.
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.
However, many people may experience this, such as those who identify as asexual. It's also completely normal to lose at least some of the physical attraction toward your partner as time goes on, especially for women, according to research .
Yep — it's called genetic assortative mating — and it's more common than you might think. So, Dylan Sprouse and Barbara Palvin, if you're troubled by the fact you look more like brother and sister than boyfriend and girlfriend — don't worry.
The age varies from man to man, but there are patterns that are easily identified: Most men who graduate from high school start thinking of marriage as a real possibility when they are 23 or 24. Most men who graduate from college don't start considering marriage as a real possibility until age 26.
For many, the need for physical attractiveness not only helps create a relationship, but it continues on throughout marriage, and love units are deposited whenever the spouse is seen — if he or she is physically attractive. Among the various aspects of physical attractiveness, weight generally gets the most attention.
In fact, people in happy, healthy, committed relationships can still develop fluttery feelings for attractive others. Crush-y feelings don't need to mean anything about your marriage or your spouse, or about the person you have a crush on. Feelings just happen sometimes.
A study focused on body odor samples collected from 30 couples in Scotland showed that romantic partners had natural scents that were much more similar than randomized pairs. The couples participating in the study had all been in relationships for at least six months.
Just because partners tend to be similar does not mean that more similar couples are in more satisfying relationships or that their relationships last longer. Perhaps dissimilar partners are less common but just as satisfied and successful.
The first stage of a relationship is the Merge, aka the honeymoon phase. It's the initial, sweeping romance that often consumes a couple when they first get together, including an all-consuming joy in the presence of our partner and insatiable, passionate sex.
This is where the numbers get tough. Given half a billion potential soul mates, your chance of finding your true love is one in 10,000. Monroe speculates on the consequences of such a world where a vast majority will remain alone.
Finding your soulmate is rare, though, in a world of billions of people, it happens more than you might think. That's because soul connections can happen on many different levels. For instance, a friend or a family member can be a soul mate just as much as a life partner.
Sometimes when soulmates meet there is no physical attraction at all but there is a force that pushes them towards one another. Even if the early attraction is slight and your soulmate doesn't match your 'usual type', you will just know that this is the person you are supposed to be with – it will feel right.