Match makers and deal breakers: analyses of assortative mating in newlywed couples.

We conducted a comprehensive analysis of assortative mating (i.e., the similarity between wives and husbands on a given characteristic) in a newlywed sample. These newlyweds showed (a) strong similarity in age, religiousness, and political orientation; (b) moderate similarity in education and verbal intelligence; (c) modest similarity in values; and (d) little similarity in matrix reasoning, self- and spouse-rated personality, emotional experience and expression, and attachment. Further analyses established that similarity was not simply due to background variables such as age and education and reflected initial assortment (i.e., similarity at the time of marriage) rather than convergence (i.e., increasing similarity with time). Finally, marital satisfaction primarily was a function of the rater's own traits and showed little relation to spousal similarity.

The influence of egocentrism and focalism on people's optimism in competitions: when what affects us equally affects me more.

Six experiments investigated people's optimism in competitions. The studies involved hypothetical and real competitions (course grades in Experiments 1 and 2, a trivia game in Experiments 3-5, and a poker game in Experiment 6) in which the presence of shared adversities and benefits (factors that would generally hinder or help the absolute performance of all competitors) was manipulated. Shared adversities tended to reduce people's subjective likelihoods of winning, whereas shared benefits tended to increase them. The findings suggest that when people judge their likelihood of winning, their assessments of their own strengths and weaknesses have greater impact than their assessments of their competitors' strengths and weaknesses. We identify egocentrism and focalism as two causes of the bias. The experiments revealed moderators of this bias, but also illustrated its robust nature across a variety of conditions.