Credit: Pavel Pospisil
My boyfriend of three (or so) years and I both like watching old movies, cooking and arguing about politics. But, according to Match.com’s new science-based online dating service, Chemistry.com, these shared pastimes may not be enough for our relationship to survive into our golden years.
Helen Fisher, the Rutgers anthropologist who designed the complex personality test that powers Chemistry.com, insists that complementary brain chemistry makes for long-lasting love, not surface similarities.
“We gravitate to people who are similar to us, and we marry people who are similar. But that’s not really what keeps people together,” Fisher said. “Once you know that you’re both Episcopalians, you don’t have to go through this for the next 40 years. It’s been established: We really stick with people because of personality traits rather than values.”
Advertisement
Along with some familiar criteria like religion, race, age and political bent, the questionnaire also assesses spatial reasoning skills and emotional intelligence. One question asks whether the user’s index finger is longer or shorter than his or her ring finger. The comparison measures fetal testosterone activity—a longer ring finger indicates a higher exposure to the hormone in the womb. Fisher says greater levels of testosterone during prenatal development correlate to better spatial skills as an adult.
The Chemistry.com test separates users into four basic personality types—Explorers, Builders, Negotiators and Directors—based on the dominant chemical system in their brains. Builders, Fisher said, are people with an especially active serotonin system—serotonin being a mood-regulating neurotransmitter. Builders tend to be to be calm, popular, traditional and conscientious. Explorers have especially high activities of dopamine, which is active in the brain’s pleasure system, and are typically optimistic, spontaneous, creative risk-takers. Negotiators are ruled by estrogen, the primary female sex hormone, and tend to be social, theoretical and imaginative multi-taskers. Directors, with active systems of testosterone, the male sex hormone, are likely to be ambitious, bold, decisive and logical.
Fisher stressed that more than one chemical system could be especially active. So the test further categorizes people with a secondary type. For example, based on my answers, I fit the profile of a Negotiator-Director; my boyfriend is an Explorer-Negotiator.
Fisher emphasized that many different combinations of personality types could make a solid match and that finding a partner on Chemistry.com is a complicated process—the site asks you what you liked about past partners, seeking to determine what characteristics you are looking for rather than just matching all Explorers with all Builders. Still, Fisher has some particular theories about which types are generally going to be attracted to one another.
“I do think the Negotiator is going to be quite drawn to the Director, and I think the Director’s going to be quite drawn to the Negotiator,” she said. “And also, I think a very interesting match that we’ll end up seeing quite a few of is the Explorer with the Builder.”
This wasn’t good news. I began to wonder how the Negotiator in me and the Explorer in my man had held together so long. Perhaps we slid by on our secondary tendencies, which are properly in line.
Fisher thinks the Negotiator will benefit from the Director’s social skills, while the latter will appreciate the former’s go-getter attitude. Similarly the Explorer’s spontaneity and the Builder’s stability will complement one another. These types, she said, would not only attract each other, but also continue to be biologically compatible over the course of a lifetime.
“The Negotiator will continue to enchant the Director with her—probably often her—imagination, theoretical views, verbal skills,” said Fisher. “And she’ll be continually enchanted by the Director’s ability to get everything done, and be very inventive about it and bold and direct.”