People look for same 'type' of person they break up with

Toronto:  If you have come out of a relationship and decide to date someone else, chances are higher of you falling in love with a person who shares similar traits with your past partner, says a study.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that people often look for love with the same type of person over and over again.

"It's common that when a relationship ends, people attribute the breakup to their ex-partner's personality and decide they need to date a different type of person. But our research suggests there's a strong tendency for people to nevertheless continue to date a similar personality," said study lead author Yoobin Park from the University of Toronto in Canada.

Using data from an ongoing multi-year study on couples and families across several age groups, the research team compared the personalities of current and past partners of 332 people. 

Participants in the study, along with a sample of current and past partners, assessed their own personality traits related to agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness to experience. 

Analysis of the responses showed that overall, the current partners of individuals described themselves in ways that were similar to past partners, said the researchers.

"The degree of consistency from one relationship to the next suggests that people may indeed have a 'type'," said Geoff MacDonald, Professor at the varsity. 

"And though our data does not make clear why people's partners exhibit similar personalities, it is noteworthy that we found partner similarity above and beyond similarity to oneself," he added.