While many people have an idea of the kind of person they would like to date, a Canadian study finds who we think is our "type" doesn't always align with those we end up choosing.
Research from , published last year in the , suggests the qualities we believe we enjoy in a romantic partner — being kind, intelligent, confident or funny — are driven in part by experience, but also by social context.
"The extent to which we think we like these traits actually bear little resemblance to what actually predict your romantic interests," Andre Wang, an assistant professor of psychology at U of T Scarborough and a co-author of the study, told CTV's Your Morning on the eve of Valentine's Day.
"So in other words, the more you think that you like intelligence that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be attracted to more smart partners," he said Monday.
To test these notions of attraction, Wang and other researchers from the University of California, Davis used four separate studies involving more than 1,300 participants between the ages of 18 and 35, across ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations.
Part of the research involved asking participants to rate how much they liked qualities such as confidence.
They then rated how much they liked a series of online dating profiles and how likely they were to sign up on certain dating websites based on those profiles.
The results showed that participants' ideas around how much they liked confidence, for example, did not predict whether they would sign up for a free trial on a site that featured photos of confident people.
Instead, the degree to which participants liked confidence after experiencing it proved to be a stronger predictor, the researchers say.
They use the example of going to a party where you meet many funny people. A person may come away from it thinking they prefer funny people, when it was actually the context — a party with a lot of humour — that was attractive.
In other words, the researchers say there is a difference between what we think we like and what drives us to like something.
"What we know from relationship signs is that it's actually really hard to predict romantic attraction, this kind of unique bond between two people, ahead of time," Wang said.
When it comes to dating apps, Wang says be sure to "trust your gut," but also be open to possibilities. "Someone might not check all your boxes but they can still sweep you off your feet if you give them a chance."
Watch the full interview with Andre Wang at the top of the article
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