Despite the old saying “opposites attract,” scholars have found that in almost every way imaginable, people tend to choose mates who look, sound and act as they do.
But in the area perhaps most fraught with potential conflict ”” money ”” somehow, some way, people gravitate toward their polar opposite, a new study says.
“Spendthrifts” and “tightwads” (which, as it turns out, are actual academic terms) tend to marry the other. Unfortunately, these dichotomized duos report unhappier marriages than people with more similar attitudes toward spending.
How do we know all this? Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan and Northwestern University looked at several surveys that asked a married couple to assess separately their personal feelings toward spending money.