Does Marriage Make Us More Alike?
We Were Looking for Our Own Clone, New Research Suggests
By LEE DYE
Sept. 1, 2010
If you live with your mate long enough, eventually you will look like each other, think like each other, and become so similar your friends will have trouble telling you apart, right?
Not really, according to new research that challenges the long-held belief that many years of cohabitation causes spouses to grow more alike as the years roll by.
The research, by psychologists at Michigan State University and the University of Minnesota, is based on a relatively huge data base of 1,296 couples who have been married for an average of 19.8 years. It was published in the current issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
What they found is that couples who had been married for a long time -- up to 39 years -- were no more alike in fundamental personality traits than newlyweds, leading the researchers to conclude that personalities do not grow more similar as the years pass. More likely, the couples were looking for specific traits during the courtship and they ended up with someone who was very much like themselves.
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