Abstract
People were found to prefer and choose partners with self-similar (homogamy) and/or parent-similar (imprinting-like effect) eye and hair colour. However, it is disputable, which mechanism play more important role in mate choice, and whether people choose consistently partners with the same eye and hair colour in long-term and short-term context.
One thousand forty-eight respondents indicated eye and hair colour of themselves, their opposite-sex parent, and all romantic partners they had in their lives. Results showed that people choose partners consistently regarding eye and hair colour in both short and long-term contexts, what suggest that "people do have their types".
Furthermore, partners' eye colour was predicted by opposite-sex parent's but not own characteristic, while partner's hair colour was negatively affected by own characteristics but not opposite-sex parent's characteristic. In other words, our results suggest, that preferences for eye-colour are formed by imprinting-like effect rather than homogamy, and remain stable over time.
Moreover, these findings indirectly support stability of imprinting-like effect in humans, since people consistently choose partners with eye-colour found in their parents.