Preconscious Factors in Romantic Attraction

The purpose of this study was to discover whether or not the character and or behavior of parents is a factor in the romantic attraction and mate selections made by adults. The study examined the correlation between the parent's temperament and the partners temperament under two different conditions. The first condition involved a comparison when the participants identified their parent as a nurturant parent. The second condition involved a comparison when the participants identified their parent as a person with whom they had a conflicted parentadolescent relationship. Four predictions were tested based upon psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theory; 1) adults will be attracted to and select partners who are similar in temperament to the parent they identify as nurturant, 2) adults will be attracted to and select partners whose temperament is complementary to their own, 3) adults will be attracted to and select partners who are similar in temperament to the parent with whom they had a conflicted parent-adolescent relationship, and 4) adults will be attracted to and select partners who are unlike the parent with whom they had a conflicted parentadolescent relationship. The participants consisted of 95 adults between the ages 24 and 40. They were required to have been cohabitants or married for at least three years. Sixty six women and 29 men participated in the study. The subjects were asked to describe their father, mother, partner and self on the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis Scale and the LaForge, Interpersonal Check List. Then they were asked to describe their parent-adolescent realationship using the Bienvenue Parent Adolescent Communication Inventory, (PACI). The PACI was used to identify the two parent-adolescent conditions, nurturant, and conflictual. The results support the first and the fourth hypothesis. They did not support the second and third hypothesis.


Statistical
Method: The participants used the TJTA to provide descriptions for each of the four target personalities, mother, father, partner, and self. These descriptions produced six separate scores for each of the personalities described.
The first score represented "nervous", the second score "depressive", the third score "expressive", the forth "sympathetic", the fifth "dominant" and the sixth, "hostile". The scores ranged Of the subjects who identified mother as the nurturant parent, 12 were males and 40 were females. Of those who identified father as the nurturant parent, 6 were males and 25 were females. These data are presented in Table 1.    Table 4.     The mean partner/self correlation of .4856 is also higher than the sample mean mother/partner correlation of .2570 and the sample mean father/partner correlation of .2042 from Table 7. These results are all contrary to the predicted finding.
Finally, Freud's theory that women would be more likely than men to make this narcississtic selection was analyzed.
For this to be confirmed, the correlations for women would need to be lower than those for men. Instead, as can be seen in Table 9, it was the men who made the slightly more complementary selections where the mean was .4662 for men and .4936 for females. The difference was not significant.
Note that the results presented in Table 9 support the 56 body of research that concludes that adults select mates who are "similar" in personality characteristics to themselves, (Jedlicka 1980, Buss 1985, Buss 1986, Meharabian 1989, Wilson 1989, Boyden 1984, Vinacke 1988, Mathes 1985. The other results in this study appear to indicate that "similarity" between mate and self may not be the salient variable.
In other words, while it is true that there is an overall mean high positive correlation between mate and self, it may be the personality characteristics of the parents that allow us to differentiate between and to understand why some subjects fall below the mean and others fall above.

HYPOTHESIS #3
The third hypothesis predicts that subjects will select mates like the parent with whom they had a "conflicted''  Table   4 and 4A.
Of the subjects (N=25) who reported that the conflict was with mother, 21 (84%) of those were female subjects and 4 (16%) were male subjects.
(See Table 4, row 1, column 1,3,and 5.) Of the subjects who reported that the conflict was with father (N=41), 29 or 71% were female subjects and 12 or 29% were male subjects. (See Table 4, row 2, column 1,3, and 5.) These statistics indicate that female subjects were nearly three times more likely than men, to report conflict with one or both of their parents.   Table 6.
Then we compared the conflict mother/partner group with the nurturant M/P group. The t score of 3.80 found in Table 5 indicated that the two groups were different and that the selections made by those reporting a conflicted relationship with either parent were for partners unlike the parent with whom they had the conflicted relationship.
The mean mother/partner correlation for the participants who reported a conflicted relationship with mother was -.0824. See Table 10. ' study did not select partners like the parent with whom they had a conflicted relationship.

HYPOTHESIS #4:
Hypothesis 4 predicts that subjects will select mates/partners who are not like the parent with whom they had a conflicted relationship, the "healthy choice". We began by determining how many of our subjects reported having a conflicted relationship with a parent. See Table 4 and 4A.  Jacobson, 1978;Lott & Lott, 1974;Murstein, 1971;Nevid, J. 1984;Sager, 1976;Stuart, 1969;Winch, 1958; Form" then fill out the first TJTA marked "Father".

Walster
Then fill out the first ICL marked "Father". When you have completed those three, do the same for your mother.
First the "Mother Form", the TJTA marked "Mother" and the ICL marked "Mother".
Two days after you have completed the above forms, fill out the PACI. Then fill out the "Mate Form", the TJTA, and the ICL on your "Partner". When you have completed those, do the same with respect to yourself. First the "Self Form", the TJTA, and then the ICL. The answer sheets are labeled with the title of the target relative. All forms should be filled out in pencil.
The Taylor