The results also suggested that these feelings of enjoyment were by far the strongest factor and overrode the effects of consensual validation and certainty of being liked. Expecting to enjoy the interaction also helped to explain why people liked similar partners more before the interaction, and actual enjoyment of the interaction also explained why people like similar partners more after they interacted. Certainty of being liked by the partner helped to explain why people liked similar partners more, both before and after the interaction. Presumably feeling validated requires more of a chance to connect with someone who shares your values and preferences, rather than just a vague notion that you may have some things in common. Even though a dissimilar person would be more likely to actually provide new knowledge and experiences, research has shown that people are more likely to see self-expansion opportunities when interacting with someone who is similar, rather than dissimilar, to them.Ĭonsensual validation helped to explain why people who perceived greater similarity liked their partners more after the interaction, but not before. Self-expansion opportunity: According to self-expansion theory, one benefit of relationships is that we can gain new knowledge and experiences by spending time with someone else.Fun and enjoyable interactions: It's just more fun to hang out with someone when you have a lot in common.And in turn, we are more likely to like people if we think they like us. Certainty of being liked: We assume that someone who has a lot in common with us is more likely to like us.We then assume that the other person, like us, has other positive characteristics. So we learn that a person has something in common with us, and that makes us feel positively about that person, because we feel positively about ourselves.
In studies where people actually met strangers with whom they had more or less in common, actual similarity affected liking, but not as much as in studies where people never met the stranger. In studies where people just read about a stranger and don't actually meet them, finding out they have a lot in common with the stranger greatly boosts liking, because they have nothing else upon which to base their impression. The less information we have about a person, the more actual similarity affects liking.
Or maybe we just find it more fun to hang out with someone who shares our interests. Perhaps we anticipate that someone who has a lot in common with us will like us more. There are also many different reasons why we might like people who are similar to us. Or you may assume you have a lot in common with someone because you like them. Or you might initially assume you'll have a lot in common with a person you don't know that much about, only to find out that you're not really on the same wavelength once you get to know each other. You may think you have a lot in common with someone, but you might be mistaken. These two kinds of similarity are certainly related, but they're not exactly the same thing. First, there is a difference between actually having a lot in common with someone (called actual similarity) and believing that we have a lot in common (perceived similarity). But the reasons why we like people who are like us can be complex. It is not surprising that we tend to like people who are similar to us, and there is a large body of research that confirms this.