28 AMPERSAND | FEB/MAR 2014
BY: LORI KEONG
As a morning kick, I’ll sometimes pair the
taste of a bitter cup of coffee with a sweet
guilty pleasure: a glance at my daily love
horoscope. Today, mine reads, “If you’re
single and looking for love, there will be a
happy prospect opening up after Saturday.”
Well, shucks, Mr. Tarot. Let me clear my
schedule.
Although I usually take these love
digests with a grain of salt, true astrology
enthusiasts—more common than some may
think—base their entire love lives around
their star signs, predicting their ideal mates
down to the last moon. After another incon
clusive date has me thinking I’ll be spending
V-Day with a bunch of single girls at Yoforia,
I can’t help but wonder whether there’s an
easier way to determine compatibility: what
works and what’s worth holding on to.
Is it all in the stars?
According to University of Georgia
astronomy professor Jean-Pierre Caillault
and much of the scientific community,
absolutely not; there is no scientific basis
for astrology. “Obviously it has deep roots in
the constellations,” Caillault says, but adds
that constellations are made-up and that
besides the sun, “there’s no possible connec
tion with planets or stars [and] us.”
Well, if astrology isn’t the measure of
a match made in heaven, there have to be
more reliable ways to test compatibility.
Dating websites, for one, seem to have match-
making down to a relative science. Popular
sites like eHarmony.com and Match.com,
for example, often pair users through an
algorithm that accounts for shared interests
and personality traits.
Sociologist Dr. Pepper Schwartz,
who has been studying gender relations
since the early ‘70s, devised her formula
for dating website PerfectMatch.com based
on the Myers-Briggs personality test
developed from studies by Swiss
psychoanalyst Carl Jung.
As Schwartz discovered through her
research, matters dealing with attraction
and psychology are, well, complicated.
In the article “How Do I Love Thee,”
published in the March 2006 edition of The
Atlantic, she says there is no perfect formula
for compatibility, but that science can help
people get close.
Using personality-based categories as her
framework, Schwartz’s test accounts for the
fact that opposites attract and that people
seek “similarity and complementarity in
different amounts.”
For example, a risk taker may be attract
ed to someone who tends to play it safe, at
the same time seeking similarities in their
partner for other traits.
Dr. Jennifer Gonyea, a lecturer and un
dergraduate coordinator in the university’s
