This study used the matching hypothesis of attraction to determine whether American men and women of the same weight classification are attracted to each other as romantic partners. The subjects were 330 married couples randomly selected and interviewed who represented four different life cycle stages. Their relative weight was determined by weight, height, frame size, and sex. For younger couples, there was a pattern of matching by weight that may reflect initial decisions based on attraction. Retired couples also had significant intracouple correlations for weight, which may reflect the shared lifestyle of the elderly. However, matching by weight did not occur for middle-age couples. An explanation based on a proposed norm of appropriateness is used to discuss the findings.
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Schafer et al. (1990) studied this question.
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