Byrne's paradigmatic approach to the study of interpersonal attraction was extended to the study of friendships at several stages of development. It was proposed that the reinforcement value of attitudinal similarity to a laboratory stranger might be modified by other motivational processes at more advanced levels of relationship, to the extent that dissimilarity might become reinforcing and thus produce an increase in attraction. In Expt. I a positive relationship was found between similarity and attraction in the fictitious stranger (new encounter) and established friendship groups (one year's acquaintance) but friends at an earlier (‘tentative’) stage of relationship (1–6 months) were more attracted to their partner when he displayed a mild or high degree of dissimilarity in attitudes. In Expt. II the fictitious stranger group was omitted, and the tentative friendship group was divided into early (1–3 months) and late (4–6 months) subgroups. Subjects in the early group were most attracted to the mildly dissimilar friend, while those in the late group preferred the highly dissimilar friend, and established friends were most attracted, as in Expt. I, to totally similar partners. Implications of these outcomes for friendship development and for the measurement of interpersonal attraction are discussed.
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McCarthy et al. (1976) studied this question.