Self-enhancement biases, self-esteem, and ideal mate preferences

People seek ideal romantic partners who are similar to themselves. In this research, we tested whether this preference reflects a self-enhancement bias. Study 1 (N = 40) found that people who like themselves a lot (i.e., high self-esteem people) were more likely to describe their ideal romantic partner in terms that matched their self-evaluations than were people whose self-feelings are more ambivalent (i.e., low selfesteem people). Study 2 (N = 141) extended these findings by showing that low self-esteem participants who had just been given positive feedback about themselves were just as apt as high self-esteem participants to describe their ideal romantic partner in terms that matched their self-descriptions. Taken together, these findings suggest that the more that people like themselves, the more they will desire an ideal romantic partner who is just like them. 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. What processes shape people’s preferences for an ideal mate? One possibility is complementarity. Like the lead character in the Hollywood movie, Jerry McGuire, people might be looking for a romantic partner who ‘‘completes them’’ by being the things they are not (White & Hatcher, 1984; Winch, 1958). Although cinematically appealing, this hypothesis has not fared well. Instead of seeking someone with different traits from their own, people seek others who are highly similar to themselves on a broad range of attributes (Byrne, 1971; Heider, 1958; Klohnen & Luo, 2003). The reason why people seek similar ideal mates is less clear, however. One possibility is that a preference for a romantic partner who shares one’s own qualities is an example of assortative mating: a general tendency for animals to mate with others who possess similar attributes. Another possibility is that we prefer ideal mates who are like us because we generally feel more comfortable with those who share our tastes, opinions, and interests, or believe they are more informative targets of social comparison. All of these possibilities enjoy empirical support (Cooper & Sheldon, 2002). The present studies test a related hypothesis. Building on evidence that most people view themselves in highly positive terms (Alicke, 1985; Brown, 1986, 2012; Taylor & Brown, 1988), we test whether self-enhancement processes guide the search for a romantic partner. Our thinking is this: Because most people like themselves a lot, they seek a romantic partner who is a lot like them (Jones, Pelham, Carvallo, &Mirenberg, 2004). To the extent that this is so, we should find that a preference for similar others varies across levels of self-liking (i.e., the more people like themselves, the more they want a romantic partner who is just like them). Our hypothesis is consistent with other research on selfenhancement biases in interpersonal relationships. For example, most people treat their relationship partners as extensions of themselves (Aron & Aron, 1997), and people who like themselves a lot are especially prone to view their romantic partners in unrealistically positive terms (Fletcher & Kerr, 2010). Extending these associations to ‘‘fictional’’ ideal mates, we predict that people who are very fond of themselves are most inclined to look for a romantic partner who shares their qualities. Importantly, the self-enhancement perspective differs from a simple similarity hypothesis. Unlike a similarity model that does not incorporate individual differences in self-feelings, the selfenhancement perspective assumes that the desire for a similar romantic partner will be stronger among those who like themselves a lot than among those who are less enamored with themselves. In statistical terms, whereas the similarity perspective is a ‘‘main effects model’’ (i.e., across levels of self-liking, people seek a romantic partner who shares their qualities), the self-enhancement model predicts a Self-liking similarity interaction (i.e., similarity will be stronger when self-liking is high than when it is low). We conducted two studies to test these competing hypotheses. In the first study, we tested whether the desire for a similar ideal romantic partner is stronger among people who characteristically like themselves a lot (i.e., high self-esteem people) than among http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.09.039 0191-8869/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding authors at: Department of Psychology, Seattle Pacific University, 3307 3rd Ave. W. Ste. 107, Seattle, WA 98119, United States. Tel.: +1 (206) 281 2940; fax: +1 (206) 281 2695 (M.A. Brown). Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Box 351525, Seattle, WA 98125, United States. Tel.: +1 (206) 543