Journal of Personality and Social Psycholology, 1993 Jul;65(1):56-68

Is human mating adventitious or the result of lawful choice? A twin study of mate selection.*

Lykken DT, Tellegen A
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455-0344.

Pairs of middle-aged twins and their spouses provided data on 74 mainly psychological variables. Neither spousal similarity nor idiosyncratic criteria could account for specific mate selection in these 738 couples. Of the twins (and their spouses), 547 independently rated their initial attraction to their twin's mate (or to their spouse's twin): Findings suggest that characteristics both of the chooser and the chosen constrain mate selection only weakly. This article proposes that it is romantic infatuation that commonly determines the final choice from a broad field of potential eligibles and that this phenomenon is inherently random, in the same sense as is imprinting in precocial birds.

* Reproduced with permission of the APA - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology