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Politics and Interpersonal Attraction

Providence College

Two explanations have been offered for the similarity of husband and wife political views. One is mutual socialization, which states that after a period of time married couples come to share political values. An alternative explanation is that individuals select mates who share their political views. A test of the mutual socialization hypothesis would require panel data, but the selection hypothesis can be tested using experimental techniques. Drawing on the literature from social psychology, an experiment was designed to deter mine whether political views make any difference in interpersonal attraction. The findings of the experiment revealed that the political views of opposite sex others do have an effect on interpersonal attraction. The attraction scores of females who were interested in politics were influenced the most by political issues. This study provides partial confirma tion of the selection hypothesis.

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