Compatibility test for couples: beyond personality types

You walked away from a conversation with your partner thinking, "How did we end up here again?" You keep having the same argument over and over, and now you find yourself searching for a compatibility test for couples.

You’re hoping to find some quiet confirmation that this is workable, or some early warning that it isn't. 

Maybe your astrological signs aren’t aligned or your personality types are doomed.

Even if it's bad news, at least you’ll know. And that will feel better than the ache in your chest and rock in your stomach from not knowing if you and your current partner are truly a good fit.

If you’ll make it… 

Relationship researchers have spent forty years looking for a way to predict how a couples will do based on their two personality types, and still haven’t found one that stands up to scientific validation.

That doesn’t mean personality doesn't matter. 

But the thing that decides how compatible a relationship is happens somewhere outside of a couple’s compatibility test.

Do compatibility tests work?

You can find plenty of couples compatibility tests online. There’s no shortage.

Answer questions, and get results. A number, a series of letters, or a paragraph describing how well your partnership is suited. 

The claim underneath most is that similarity between two personality profiles predicts whether a relationship works. 

In 2012, five relationship scientists, including Eli Finkel at Northwestern and Benjamin Karney at UCLA, published a full review of the matching-algorithm (online dating) industry. 

Many online dating platforms use personality matching to pair users based on predicted compatibility.

But when the researchers looked for published evidence that any matching algorithm predicts romantic outcomes, they found none.

Fourteen years later, that hasn't changed.

Similarity does not equal relationship satisfaction

You may have heard the phrase "birds of a feather flock together." It's a cute little phrase we use to describe a well-established psychological principle called homophily—our tendency to be drawn to people who are similar to us.

But while homophily helps explain how friendships and social networks often form, the science suggests that similarity alone is not a reliable predictor of a satisfying romantic relationship.

Researchers followed more than 23,000 married people and looked at three things related to relationship satisfaction: your own personality, your partner's personality, and how similar the two of you are. They didn’t find convincing data that personality compatibility leads to more happiness or success with your partner. 

Your own personality accounted for about 6% of how satisfied you were with the relationship, while your partner's personality mattered even less. Personalities explained close to nothing, satisfaction-wise.

A second review of relationship studies found that actual similarity between two people did predict attraction when they had just met. However, in relationships that already existed, the effect of actual similarity disappeared. What kept mattering was whether partners believed they were similar.

A speed-dating study found the same split. Perceived similarity predicted who liked whom. 

Actual similarity didn't.

So having things in common may bring you together initially, but similarity doesn’t predict ongoing compatibility.

In plain English: matching two people by how alike they are works reasonably well as a party trick to get them acquainted, but similarity loses its magic once they're in a relationship together. 

Which is exactly when you'd want it to work.

If not similarity, then what?

If personality similarity can’t tell you whether or not you and your partner are truly compatible, what can?

In 2020, a team of 86 researchers analyzed data from 43 long-term studies of couples conducted by 29 different research labs to identify what best predicted relationship quality. Rather than finding that personality types were the strongest predictor of relationship satisfaction, they found that satisfaction was more closely associated with:

• Believing your partner was committed to the relationship.
• Feeling appreciated by your partner.
• Sexual satisfaction.
• Believing your partner was satisfied with the relationship.
• How conflict was handled.

In other words, the quality of the relationship itself mattered far more than whether two people shared the same personality traits.

When you look at that list, an interesting idea emerges. Four of the five are perceptions or beliefs one person holds about the other.

Perceptions can easily change. 

Personality type is much less malleable.

How understanding builds satisfaction

If personality compatibility isn’t the key to strong relationships, what is? 

You’re familiar with this scene: one person shares something. The other responds. It’s a reel, a story from the day, an inside joke. What got shared doesn’t matter.

Whether intimacy gets built depends almost entirely on whether the first person came away feeling understood and cared for. 

Researchers call this perceived partner responsiveness.

So the natural next question is whether understanding your partner can help improve this type of responsiveness. 

A review of 21 studies covering 2,739 people found a positive link between accurately reading a partner's thoughts and feelings and being satisfied with the relationship.

It turns out understanding how your partner thinks, processes, and experiences the world can make the difference between feeling supported and feeling left behind.

The Expression dimension of SHEER Personality offers a simple example.

Imagine you're Highly Expressive and naturally process your thoughts and feelings out loud. Your partner, however, leans more toward the Reflective side of the spectrum. Without understanding this difference, it's easy to assume they're shutting down, disengaging, or abandoning the conversation when, in reality, they may simply need a few minutes to process internally before they're ready to respond.

Silence driven by internal processing isn't the same as disinterest or abandonment. Recognizing the difference can mean the difference between a productive conversation and one that leaves both people feeling frustrated, hurt, and misunderstood.

The relationship satisfaction formula

Thirty years ago, Benjamin Karney and Thomas Bradbury described how relationship satisfaction develops from three interacting factors:

1. What each person brings in: personality, history—the things researchers call enduring vulnerabilities.
2. What life throws at you: money, illness, a new baby, a hard year at work.
3. And what you do when things get difficult. 

You don't get much say over the first two. Your patterns are largely set, and the hard year arrives whether you invited it or not. 

The third factor is the one you can actually change.

Two people with nearly identical personality types can handle conflict badly. Two people whose personalities look nothing alike can work through conflict well. 

The difference between the two comes down to relational intelligence. 

Relational intelligence can overcome personality differences

Relational intelligence is the ability to build and strengthen connections with others. Unlike emotional intelligence, which focuses on recognizing and understanding your own emotions, relational intelligence (RQ) focuses on the dynamic and patterns between people.

RQ can include:

• Noticing your own reaction to a dynamic while it's happening, before it becomes something you said. 
• Perceiving another person with some accuracy and empathy.
• Staying regulated when a conversation gets hot.
• Repairing after a rupture. 

Just like many other practices, like self-awareness and emotional intelligence, RQ is something that you can get better at.

And the more you improve your RQ skills, the more you can strengthen your relationships with others—including your romantic partner.

Start with patterns, not compatibility

Relational intelligence starts with two things: seeing your own reactions clearly, and reading your partner accurately. You can't practice either one without knowing what you're each working with. 

These are the patterns SHEER Personality surfaces.

SHEER Personality is an assessment tool that maps you across five spectrums. 

The five points connect to form a shape—a personality constellation that's uniquely yours. 

The dimensions reveal your patterns, and they describe the very things that can impact your relationships: how adaptable or structured you are, how you handle disagreement, whether you process out loud or go quiet first, how much of the emotional weather you absorb, how readily you take in something new.

Once you can see your own pattern, you can translate it for your partner before the same conversation turns into conflict for the 100th time.

• I go quiet because I'm thinking, not because I'm leaving. 
• I need a plan before I can relax into the weekend. 
• I’m feeling overwhelmed because of all of the emotions running in this room, not because of you.

SHEER Personality provides a unique way to see how two people's personality patterns interact. By overlaying two personality constellations, you can quickly identify where your natural tendencies align, where they differ, and where misunderstandings are most likely to occur.

Where you closely align, you already move the same way, and it feels easy. 

Where you sit far apart is where misunderstanding, tension, or miscommunication are more likely to crop up.

The partner who operates opposite to you on a dimension isn't doing it wrong. They're running a pattern you don't have, which is exactly why it can be hard to understand how those patterns show up.

An overlay of your individual constellations shows you where you can benefit from a deeper understanding of how the other person is built, which may save you from the friction you'd otherwise keep having.

Maybe you need to have a concrete plan in place to relax, when your partner thrives with a general direction and room to be flexible. 

Maybe you need to talk an issue out in real time, but they need to quietly reflect for a while to decide how they feel.

Maybe one of you is trying to keep the peace at all costs while the other is trying to get to the truth of an issue—and is willing to compromise peace to uncover the real issue.

Unlike a compatibility test that predicts success based on similarity, the SHEER Personality assessment is a tool that reveals you and your partners’ patterns, so you can understand each other across the dimensions where you're built differently, which is where the friction was coming from in the first place.

So, if you’re still searching for a compatibility test for couples, you may want to consider why you’re seeking an answer to “are they the one?” 

Instead of asking whether you fit, discover what you're each working with, and what to do with the places that don't line up.

Take the assessment to discover your constellation and start navigating your most important relationships with more ease. 

Please note: If a relationship involves fear, coercion, or control, a personality tool is the wrong instrument. In the US, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.