

Opposites Don’t Attract (And That’s Bad News)  - yarapavan
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/opposites-dont-attract-and-thats-bad-news/

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j_baker
_For one thing, the friendships were actually closer and longer lasting at the
small colleges, suggesting that there is nothing intrinsically beneficial
about seeking out similar people. (Opposites don’t attract, but they should.)_

This is worth noting for anyone networking or doing hiring. You have to make a
conscious effort to find people who _balance you out_ instead of finding
people who are just like you. Many of the most rewarding relationships I've
had have been with people who think in ways that are diametrically opposed to
mine.

The above noted, you have to make sure that this interaction goes both ways.
Some people just can't handle relationships with people who are different from
them, and possibly for good reason. They're usually high-challenge, high-
reward affairs.

~~~
bh42222
I thought the the claim that people seek out similarity was very well
supported in the article.

The claim that different people make better friends was interesting, but in my
opinion not nearly as well supported. I would genuinely love to see more hard
data behind that claim.

~~~
rockarage
I agree, there was no data presented to suggest that the students in the
smaller colleges were not very similar. Moreover it is more likely that the
students in the small colleges are very similar, typically people won't travel
to another state to attend a small community college.

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barrkel
_Those entrepreneurs with more 'entropic' and 'diverse' social networks scored
three times higher on a metric of innovation, suggesting that the ability to
access 'non-redundant information from peers' is a crucial source of new
ideas_

Correlation <> causation alert. Perhaps entrepreneurs who are open-minded and
not narrowly focused in a small handful of disciplines are more innovative,
and this generality shows in their social circle.

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ars
I don't agree with their conclusion at all.

What they found is that it's easier to make a relationship with people who are
similar. But that is NOT the same thing as saying opposites don't attract.

Since it's easier, you will naturally have more relationships that are
similar, but that tells you nothing whatsoever about the strength of
relationships that are "opposite".

To actually do this study properly they need to quantify the "strength" of a
relationship (somehow), then correlate that with how different the people are.

They averaged the data and in the process lost the most important part. If I
have 10 friends who are similar to me, and one close friend who is different,
the data will appear to say that similarity attracts, but that's an incorrect
conclusion.

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underwater
The Facebook Data Team just released a study that draws a different conclusion
to this article (disclaimer: I'm an employee of Facebook).

[https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-
team/rethinking...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-
team/rethinking-information-diversity-in-networks/10150503499618859)

~~~
Aloisius
Did they really draw a different conclusion?

Facebook found the same effect as described in this article. People are
friends with those who are similar to them.

Information is widely shared between friends. It is only because people have
so many acquaintances that information is spread into clusters of close
friends. However, that information flow from acquaintances isn't increasing
the diversity of beliefs within a cluster of friends. If it was, then you
would see clusters of friends with diverse beliefs which has previously been
demonstrated to not be the case.

~~~
underwater
I think so. The Wired article completely dismisses any benefit from our lose
associations by saying that we are only shaped by the opinions of our close
friends. The Facebook article says that we are actually exposed to the diverse
opinions offered by our associates more than those of our close friends.

The example given in the Wired article about the two universities in Kansas
implies that the students at the larger university, who are surrounded by a
more diverse students but who have close friends similar to themselves, are
exposed to less diverse opinions. That is never actually proven in the
article.

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HeyLaughingBoy
It really doesn't matter who you seek out; it matters who you encounter and
that you are open-minded enough to accept or welcome their differences.

Anecdote: my wife and I are about as different as people can be and still stay
together. Like j_baker said, it's a "high-challenge, high-reward" situation.
Life would be _much_ easier if we were alike, but also much more boring.

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gxs
>>This is sad on a number of levels. For one thing, the friendships were
actually closer and longer lasting at the small colleges, suggesting that
there is nothing intrinsically beneficial about seeking out similar people.
(Opposites don’t attract, but they should.)

This parallels closely my experiences at a certain UC in the bay area.

It was ironic because for a school that preaches diversity, for a student body
that is self-proclaimed ultra liberal and progressive, it was socially very
conservative. The better off white kids hang out pretty much with only other
better off white kids in their frats..the asians have their own frats..so do
the blacks and hispanics. What's more, there is not too much interaction
between these groups to the point where you can really feel uncomfortable if
you find yourself in a group where you don't belong.

I don't really know where I was going with this, other than people definitely
tend to form cluster of like-minded people.

~~~
tikhonj
Heh, this was not my experience at all. I knew several very diverse groups,
basically made up of random people that met in the dorms.

Of course, I have to admit that _my_ friends are actually fairly alike: almost
all are EECS with some other engineers thrown in. But this does not reflect
most of the groups I knew in the dorms. (Also, ignoring the EECS/engineering
bent, my best friends are also a fairly diverse group.)

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6ren
A fun thing about cliches is there's often one for both sides of an argument.
e.g.

    
    
      birds of a feather flock together
    

Humans tend to treat people as in an "in-group" or "out-group". The troop
bands together against another troop. So we have all finds of discrimination,
from racism to trivial religious wars over text-editors, languages, and smart-
phones. If we don't have a way to define our "in-group", we invent one, like
cliques in high school.

I think a great invention of modern society is mass-audience sports. This
gives us a simulated war to take sides in, but with negligible practical
effect on our lives and relationships.

IMHO, it's hard to fix bugs in human nature, better to find a workaround.

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gigantor
Not a surprise if you've been keeping up with NLP trends, which suggest that
you mimick and emulate the person you're speaking with (down to body language
and breathing rates), in order to get a favorable reaction.

No surprise in the work place either. When you're interviewing with a company,
what seems to make a big impression is that you're a close match to the
'corporate culture', or the corporate average. Sure, you really should be
going out of your way to work with people who are different to gain an
alternate perspective on things, but that's a risk. Unless you possess a rare
skillset and are in short supply, chances are you will be hired not because of
your ability, but how close you resemble the team.

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hsshah
I experienced similar behavior when I moved from a smaller city in US to Bay
area. The small city at a macro level was far more homogenous when compared to
Bay area. However, I made friends with folks from a diverse group. I found
them to be open to meeting new people.

But, when I moved to Bay area, I realized that people are already part of some
clusters (based on their home country, state or school) and are less inclined
to create new friendships; particularly with someone not fitting into their
cluster criteria.

