e. It is only when other highly valued factors such as wealth, wit, or intelligence compensate for deficits in attractiveness that inequity of physical attractiveness in mate selection might occur.
In review, theories of mate selection are more often applied to the study of personality characteristics or process orientations than to marriage market conditions. It is important to note, however, that the basic assumption is that the marriage market operates in a social exchange framework. Men and women make selections under relative conditions of supply and demand with units of exchange. The market is further shaped by cultural norms such as endogamy and homogamy that can further restrict or expand the pool of eligibles.
While earlier work on the correlates of mate selection focused on homogamy of background characteristics, the work of Robert Winch (1958) set the stage for further investigation into the hypothesis that ‘‘opposites attract.’’ That is, persons of dissimilar values or personality traits would marry. While value theorists speculated that similarity of values and personality would lead to great affiliation and propensity to marry, Winch posited that persons select mates whose personality traits are complementary (opposite) to their own. Inherent in Winch’s theoretical work is the notion that certain specific trait combinations will be gratifying to the individuals involved. For example, a submissive person would find it gratifying or reciprocal to interact with a mate who had a dominant personality. Winch developed twelve such paired complementary personality traits, such as dominant- submissive and nurturant-receptive, for empirical testing using a very small sample of recently married couples. In Winch’s work, as well as the work of others, the notion that complementarity of traits was the basis for marriage was not supported by the data.
Although empirical support for need complementarity is lacking, the concept remains viable in the study of mate selection. The appeal of the concept rests in its psychological origins, as work prior to Winch’s focused primarily on structural and normative influences in mate selection. The work of Winch set the stage for research commencing in the 1960s that began to examine the processes of mate selection on the dyadic level.
Process Theories of Mate Selection
The process of selecting a mate received considerable attention beginning in the 1970s. The basic form these theories take follows the ‘‘filter theory’’ of Alan Kerckoff and Keith Davis (1962). Kerckoff and Davis found empirical support that individuals, having met through the channels of propinquity and endogamy, proceed through a series of stages or steps in the development of the relationship. According to their theory, social status variables such as social class and race operate early on in the relationship to bring people together. The next stage involved the consensus of values, during which time the couple determines the degree of similarity in their value orientations. Couples who share similar values are likely to continue to the third stage, need complementarity. However, the data collected by Kerckoff and Davis offered only weak support for need complementarity as part of the process of mate selection.
Development of process theories of mate selection continued into the 1970s and is exemplified in the work of Ira Reiss (1960), Bernard Murstein (1970), Robert Lewis (1973), and R. Centers (1975). While these theoretical perspectives differ in terms of the order and nature of the stages, they have much in common. Melding these theories of mate selection, the following assumptions can be made concerning the stages of dyad formation that lead to marriage:
All the studies of the mate selection process have struggled with methodological difficulties. Most studies have relied on small, volunteer samples of couples. Most have used college-age, nevermarried couples. Finally, most studies have made extensive use of retrospection in assessing the process of dyad formation rather than collecting longitudinal data. Thes