Personality, cognitive style and assortative mating

We investigated the degree of assortative mating among married couples, in terms of both personality (the Eysenekian Big Three and sensation seeking) and cognitive style (field dependence-independence; FBI). We found sizable assortative mating (0.2 less than or equal tor less than or equal to0.29, 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 m ating. We also found sizable assortative mating for FDI (r = 0.38). We anal yze and discuss these findings with respect to such factors as age, length of relationship, lie scores, the formation of pseudo couples? the assessmen t of profile similarity and match-mismatch in FDI. <(c)> 2001 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd. All rights reserved.