Just had a break-up and trying hard to get over your past lover by dating some new people, well here’s a piece of bad news for you! If you are seriously considering dating someone new, chances are you will fall in love with a person who shares similar traits with your previous partner. Well, that’s not we are suggesting but a study claims that.
2. Here’s why
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that people often look for love with the same type of person over and over again.
3. The study
“It’s common that when a relationship ends, people attribute the breakup to their ex-partner’s personality and decide they need to date a different type of person. But our research suggests there’s a strong tendency for people to nevertheless continue to date a similar personality,” said study lead author Yoobin Park from the University of Toronto in Canada.
4. So interesting
The research used data from an ongoing multi-year study on couples and families across several age groups, the research team compared the personalities of current and past partners of 332 people.
5. Personality traits were studied
According to reports, participants in the study, along with a sample of current and past partners, assessed their own personality traits related to agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness to experience.
6. Strange but true
Interestingly, analysis of the responses showed that overall, the current partners of individuals described themselves in ways that were similar to past partners, claimed the researchers.
7. People may indeed have a ‘type’
“The degree of consistency from one relationship to the next suggests that people may indeed have a ‘type’,” said Geoff MacDonald, Professor at the varsity.
8. People’s partners exhibit similar personalities
“And though our data does not make clear why people’s partners exhibit similar personalities, it is noteworthy that we found partner similarity above and beyond similarity to oneself,” he added.