Contributed by: Editor on Wednesday, June 03 2009 @ 05:17 pm
Last modified on
One of eHarmony's senior research scientist is psychologist Gian Gonzaga. He holds a doctorate in personality / social psychology from UC Berkeley. KansasCity.com has a short interview with him where he describes briefly what the core qualities partners need to share to have a successful relationship.
The big ones — some of the most powerful ones — are personality traits. Things like how agreeable of a person you are, how open you are to experience. Are you extroverted? So are you looking for a lot of interactions in the social world? Or are you introverted?
Dr. Gonzaga also talks about why it matters that couples share these types of traits.
Because if you are similar to someone, it’s a lot easier to understand what it is they’re thinking. ... They like to believe that what they think is true, and one of the ways that we do that is to look to other people who have the same interests and beliefs and values. So when we see that in a partner, we feel validated in our sense of self, which makes us feel better and makes us like that person.
He further explains that opposites may attract but, these type of relationships really don't last. If you are really different from your partner, negotiating the way you see things from how your partner does over and over again, as each new conflict situation arises, is extremely difficult to do. Over the long run these type of relationships just fizzle out.
Dr. Gonzaga mentions Compatible Partners as well. This is eHarmony's new dating site for gay and lesbian relationships. He was asked a question about if gay relationships share the same characteristics as a heterosexual relationship:
We think so. The existing literature on same-sex couples indicates that a lot of the same theoretical basis of sharing the same deep values is going to predict better relationships over the long haul. So right now we’re moving on the assumption that the same kinds of models are going to apply well, and then over time we’ll work on that model to tailor it as best as possible.
This is the first time that I know of were eHarmony has said they are going to spend some research money to see if gay relationships actually do differ from heterosexual relationships.
For more information on this popular personality matchmaking site, read our eHarmony review.