... themselves. According to the social exchange theory, people are more likely to become romantically involved if they are fairly closely matched in their ability to reward one another. Ideally, we would all like to have the 'perfect partner' because, the theory says, we are all selfish. However, since this is impossible we try to find a compromise solution. The best general bargain that can be struck is a value-match (a subjective belief that our partner is the most rewarding we could realistically hope to find). According to Price and Vandenberg (1979), 'the matching phenomenon (of physical attraction between marriage partners) is stable within and across generations'. The findings from the various matching hypothesis studies imply that the kind of partner that we would be satisfied with is one we feel will not reject us, rather than one we positively desire. Brown (1986), however, maintains that the matching phenomenon results from ...

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