The Relationship Becomes You

People take on the personality of those closest to them. The results of a new study suggest that given time, roommates and couples often develop similar emotional reactions to situations. This convergence seems to make relationships stronger and last longer, according to researchers.

By Colin Allen, published on June 01, 2003

The company one keeps seems to have an impact on a person's attitude toward life. The results of a new study suggest that given time, roommates and couples often develop similar emotional reactions to situations. This convergence seems to make relationships stronger and last longer, according to researchers.

“I think this process occurs because it benefits relationships,” says study author Cameron Anderson, Ph.D., a visiting assistant professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois. “Emotional similarity increases cohesion and solidarity, whereas emotional dissimilarity increases discomfort and the likelihood of interpersonal conflict.” The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

When dating, the dominant partner in a relationship changed less than the partner who had more power, according to the research. With roommates, the shyer of the two tended to change more emotionally. Anderson also found that the closer the friendship, the stronger the convergence of emotions.

In the study, Anderson interviewed 60 heterosexual couples, asking them about their personalities, their happiness with the relationship and the balance of power. Six months later the 38 couples that were still together repeated the experiment. To better understand roommates, the researchers tracked college students living on campus, at the beginning and end of a school year. To gauge their emotional similarity, researchers observed their emotional reactions to a movie.

While people do seem to take on the other person's traits to some degree, compatible emotions may have drawn them together in the first place, Anderson says. He notes that the couples that stayed together were more emotionally similar in the first place.