Personality, cognitive style and assortative mating

We investigated the degree of assortative mating among married couples, in terms of both personality (the Eysenckian Big Three and sensation seeking) and cognitive style (field dependence-independence; FDI). We found sizable assortative mating (0.25≤r≤0.29, p < 0.05) for three dimensions of sensation seeking, namely experience seeking (ES), disinhibition (Dis) and boredom susceptibility (BS), all implicating an impulsive mode of sensation seeking. This stands in marked contrast to the Eysenckian Big Three, for which there does not seem to be assortative mating. We also found sizable assortative mating for FDI (r = 0.38). We analyze and discuss these findings with respect to such factors as age, length of relationship, lie scores, the formation of pseudo couples, the assessment of profile similarity and match-mismatch in FDI.