14 DAY TRIAL // Studies made on US found that people tend to choose partners who are similar or supposed to be similar to themselves, both in looks and attitude.
Similar individuals are most likely to hold down a stable relationship.
The researches on people strongly suggested that a person's self-perception governed what they searched for in a mate.
"Individuals who had a high self-perception of themselves were more discriminating in their mate preferences than were individuals with lower self-perception scores. "
"The implication of this result is that in an open marriage market, individuals of low self-perception will find it hard to find and keep a satisfactory partner." found researchers Peter Buston and Stephen Emlen.
"Any relationship can fall apart if you don't share similar values."
"Our results suggest that individuals seeking stable long-term relationships should not seek the highest quality partner available but should simply look for partners who are similar to themselves."
Women who thought they were physically attractive tended to go for men who were wealthy, or high status and conversely, men who thought they were successful tended to go for good looking women.
But a new study at the University of California, Irvine, shows that the same principles apply to birds.
Male budgerigars that made a couple with more similar-sounding females helped more the nesting females.
Budgerigars are probably the most known parrots commonly kept as pets and which easily reproduce in captivity.
This small Australian bird produces highly variable contact calls.
It was already known that male budgerigars spontaneously imitate the calls of females during the mating time.
Females also proved to be more attracted by males who learned to produce calls similar to theirs.
Even more, the new research showed that they prefer males that sound like them at their first meeting, before any imitation has occurred.
Parrots present a rare ability of learning new vocalizations throughout their lifetime (other species with this capacity would be the humans).
Being monogamous species, the budgerigar must choose very carefully in order to maintain long-term relationships.
This is an interesting example of bird using a mate choice strategy common to humans: the mate must have something in common with it.