ICPR Abstracts: Session 26

---

Session 26: Papers

Similarity and Attraction

26.1
A Multiplicity Approach to Studying 
Gender and Relationships

Richard Koestner and Jennifer Aube
University of Ottawa

The present study examined how the similarity and 
complementarity of gender-related attitudes, behaviors, 
interests, and personality traits related to partner selection 
and relationship adjustment. Results revealed the 
important role of gender-related attitudes in relationships, 
indicating that participants tended to be paired with 
romantic partners who held similar attitudes, and that 
couples who were similar in attitudes had higher dyadic 
adjustment. Furthermore, the nature of the couples' 
attitudes influenced the extent to which couples were 
paired on the basis of complementary interests and role 
behaviors.  Results support previous research citing the 
importance of attitude similarity in interpersonal 
attraction, and demonstrate that these findings can be 
generalized to ongoing, close relationships.

26.2
The Perceived Individual and Interpersonal 
Consequences of a Couple's Pattern of Sexual Desire

Pamela C. Regan
Albion College

There is little empirical work on people's beliefs about 
sexual desire, despite the potential individual and 
interpersonal significance of those beliefs.  This person 
perception experiment explored the perceived 
consequences of a couple's pattern of sexual desire on their 
interpersonal experiences and relationship quality. In 
couples with a mismatched (nonreciprocal) sexual desire 
pattern, the high desire partner was perceived as more 
likely than the uninterested partner to be in love, satisfied, 
committed, jealous, etc., while the low desire partner was 
viewed as more likely to terminate the relationship and be 
unfaithful.  In addition, couples with mismatched or 
matched but low levels of desire were perceived as more 
dysfunctional than couples whose members have 
comparable moderate or high amounts of desire.

26.3
The Similarity of Perceived Attitudes
as a Function of Gender and Relationship Type

Bibb Latané and Long Zheng
Florida Atlantic University

A survey of 888 Chinese and 974 U.S. university students 
asked them to nominate those people with whom they had 
recently discussed important matters and to describe their 
own and their nominees' attitudes on 16 life values. 
Perceived attitudes were more similar among females and 
friends than among males or relatives, but these 
relationships also held for randomly selected pairs. 
Perceptions may be relatively accurate, since they mirror 
the actual patterns existing in society, and social influence 
may be as important as friendship choice in causing 
similarity, since there is a similarity increment for 
relatives as well as for friends. 

26.4
The Role of Comforting Skill in Same-sex Friendships:
Do We Really Know What We're Getting?

Wendy Samter and Walid A. Afifi,
 University of Delaware
Michelle Johnson, University of Arizona

There are two competing predictions about the kinds of 
comforting messages that ought to predict the quality of a 
friendship. Burleson and his colleagues define skillful 
comforting strategies as those which acknowledge, 
elaborate, and legitimize the feelings and perspectives of a 
distressed other.  Some studies indicate a preference for 
these high level strategies; however, other studies suggest 
that relational quality is actually predicted by similarity 
between partners' skill levels.  The current investigation is 
designed to further examine these competing hypotheses 
and to assess the relationship between individuals' 
preferred comforting strategy and their partners' actual 
level of comforting skill.