Scientists revealed how profession influences the choice of a partner

The field a person works in says almost nothing about what they look for in a romantic partner. This is the conclusion reached by researchers who studied nearly 2,000 adults across seven countries. The article was published in the scientific journal Personality and Individual Differences (PID).

Psychologists often view professional interests as part of personality: some are drawn to working with people, others with objects and systems, and still others with data and ideas. If this is truly a deep-seated trait, it could also influence partner choice. Researchers from the University of Wyzja (Poland) and the Catholic University of Portugal decided to test this.

The survey involved 1,974 people from the United States, Germany, South Africa, and other countries. They were divided into three groups by work domain: people-oriented (746 individuals), things-oriented (289), and abstract-category-oriented (710). Participants completed a forced-choice task twice: imagining short-term and long-term relationships, they chose which of five qualities mattered more — physical attractiveness, kindness, competence, compatibility, or character.

Work domain was almost entirely unrelated to preferences. People-oriented and things-oriented workers made virtually identical choices regarding competence and compatibility in both scenarios. The difference between groups turned out to be so small that it was deemed insignificant.

"Your job says very little about what you want in a partner. Among 1,974 adults across seven countries, field of work had almost no impact on how often they chose looks, kindness, competence, compatibility, or character. Gender and whether they were imagining a fling or a long-term relationship mattered far more," noted study co-author Dritjon Gruda from the Catholic University of Portugal.

Gender and relationship context proved to be consistently linked to preferences. In both scenarios, men more frequently chose physical attractiveness, while women chose kindness and competence. For example, in long-term relationships, men chose physical attractiveness an average of 1.13 times compared to 0.60 for women, while women chose kindness 2.51 times compared to 2.08 for men.

Context shifted priorities more strongly than profession. When imagining short-term relationships, participants chose physical attractiveness nearly three times more often — 2.33 versus 0.85. To accommodate this focus on appearance, choices of compatibility, kindness, and character each dropped by about half a point.

"The main takeaway: knowing someone's field of work tells us little about their partner preferences once we account for gender. What matters far more is whether the person is thinking about short-term or long-term relationships," Gruda concluded.