... This hypothesis simply argued that we are attracted to people who have a similar level of physical attractiveness and attributes, such as intelligence and athleticism. Walster realized that there were many reasons why someone would want to be with an attractive person, one of them being prestige. Walster claimed that some couples are physically mismatched, and proponents of the hypothesis argue that these couples balance out in other areas. On the other hand, the less attractive the person would feel insecure and jealous of their other half, thus mismatching threatens the success of a long term relationship. As well as Walster, Murstien in 1972 also carried out a research study to do with the matching hypothesis Murstien compared photographs of engaged or 'steady' couples with random couples. He found that the real couples were judged as more similar in physical attractiveness than the random pairs, therefore Murstien concluded that "individuals ...

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