A dating study built to prove 'like attracts like' found the opposite
In 1966, Elaine Walster (later Hatfield) randomly paired 752 students for a blind computer dance, expecting people to prefer partners who matched their own rated attractiveness. Instead, almost everyone — regardless of their own looks — simply wanted the most attractive date they could get. The matching effect the study set out to find only showed up decades later, in real couples.