The Effect of Personality Similarity on Evaluations of Interpersonal Attraction: The Role of the Characteristic Personality Traits of the Evaluated Person

Abstract

This study examined the effect of personality similarities on interpersonal attraction, focusing on the characteristic personality traits of persons evaluated by study participants. A total of 373 university students evaluated the attractiveness of four “stimulus persons,” described as scoring highly on each of the Big Five traits. For high-extraversion and high-agreeableness stimulus persons, the greater their similarity in characteristic personality traits to the evaluating participant, the higher the interpersonal attraction was rated. These results suggest that similarities in characteristic personality traits play an important role in the similarity effect in personality.