What Leads to Romantic Attraction: Similarity,
Reciprocity, Security, or Beauty? Evidence From
a Speed-Dating Study
Shanhong Luo1 and Guangjian Zhang2
1University of North Carolina at Wilmington
2University of Notre Dame
ABSTRACT Years of attraction research have established several
‘‘principles’’ of attraction with robust evidence. However, a major limitation
of previous attraction studies is that they have almost exclusively
relied on well-controlled experiments, which are often criticized for lacking
ecological validity. The current research was designed to examine
initial attraction in a real-life setting—speed-dating. Social Relations
Model analyses demonstrated that initial attraction was a function of the
actor, the partner, and the unique dyadic relationship between these two.
Meta-analyses showed intriguing sex differences and similarities. Self
characteristics better predicted women’s attraction than they did for men,
whereas partner characteristics predicted men’s attraction far better than
they did for women. The strongest predictor of attraction for both sexes
was partners’ physical attractiveness. Finally, there was some support for
the reciprocity principle but no evidence for the similarity principle.
Why we are attracted to some individuals but not to others is one of
the fundamental questions in the study of close relationships. To
date, hundreds of studies have been conducted to understand the
mechanism of romantic attraction. These efforts have led to several
well-established ‘‘principles’’ of attraction. However, a major limi-
The authors are deeply grateful to David Kenny for sharing with us the computer
program BLOCKO and his expertise in dyadic data analysis. We also thank Paul
Eastwick for his comments on an earlier version of this article. Finally, we thank Natasha
Tafelski, Laura Stallings, Stephen Manna, Melissa Cartun, Robyn Mitchell,
Ashley Rowland, Ashley Wilson, Kayla Dukess, Brandy Herring, and Dustin...