Do Birds of a Playful Feather Flock Together? Playfulness and Assortative Mating

The authors discuss assortative mating, the tendency-important for increased genetic variation-of individuals to mate with the phenotypically similar at rates greater than chance. Influenced by many factors-physical characteristics like height and weight and demographic elements like behavior and attitudes, economic status and education, church attendance and ethnic identity, politics and personality-assortative mating has been considered with regard to having a good sense of humor but never to being playful or being fun loving. Based on a study of 254 undergraduates, the authors examine how these variables correlate with the search for desirable mates by adults and suggest the variables are indeed subject to assortative mating.