Do couples assortatively mate on Openness, and if so why?

Abstract

Extending previous research on personality and mate choice, this study examined the influence of the Openness to Experience factor and its facets on assortative mating. In order to investigate whether prior research demonstrating weak correlations in the personality-mate choice relationship was due to the domain and level of analysis used. The study examined partner correlations in a sample of 32 couples with respect to Openness and criterion variables of intelligence, conservatism and values using partner-report. Results, using intra-class correlations, showed (a) Openness and the facets of Values and Aesthetics, as independent variables, have significant similarity within couples; (b) No similarity for demographic variables of age and education; (c) Conservatism has significant similarity within couples; (d) the Value items of Equality and Leisure Time have significant similarity within couples; (e) once the shared variance of Conservatism was removed from Openness, the latter failed to show significant similarity. Thus political attitudes remained the only sole significant determinant of assortment in the current research. Nonetheless the current research was able to advance prior personality research by highlighting a need to focus on facet-level analysis and Openness specifically in relation to mate choice.