MindSpinner

Why would I fill out a 146-item questionnaire for an online dating site when I’m not looking for a date? (Have date :->. Call that Hemingwayesque understatement.)

A. Because I’m a sucker for a survey that asks me to identify smiles as sincere or insincere and requires me to measure the length of my index finger against the length of my ring finger.
B. Because I’m intrigued by the approach of a dating site developed by an anthropologist who studies the brain physiology of romantic love and sexuality.
C. Because I’m easily intrigued by substantive diversions (not to mention trivial ones).
D. Because I want to know whether I’m a Explorer, a Builder, a Negotiator, or a Director. (It turns out I’m no less than 20% of each.)
E. Because I want to understand myself well enough to be the best partner I can be.
F. All of the above.

The answer is F, “all of the above,” and this should come as no surprise. (I know there are too many choices. Multiple choice questions make me feel subversive.)

In “How Do I Love Thee?,” an article featured in this month’s Atlantic, Lori Gottlieb examines the emerging science of attraction which underlies dating sites such as eHarmony, PerfectMatch.com, and Chemistry.com.

I knew eHarmony a while back - not impressed - profiles lacked sufficient “voice” - they were “output” instead. Only a voice tells me I’m interested. I watched some made-for-TV movie once that turned out to be a 90-minute ad for PerfectMatch.com, but I never checked into that site - I’d canned the notion of Internet matchmaking by then. But Chemistry.com sounds interesting on other grounds. Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers, devised its questionnaire and four resulting personality types based on the influences four key hormones have on personality:

“I’ve always been extremely impressed with Myers-Briggs,” she said, referring to the personality assessment tool that classifies people according to four pairs of traits: Introversion versus Extroversion, Sensing versus Intuition, Thinking versus Feeling, and Judging versus Perceiving. “They had me pinned to the wall when I took the test, and my sister, too. So when Chemistry.com approached me, I said to myself, ‘I’m an anthropologist who studies brain chemistry, what do I know about personality?’ ”

Turns out she knew quite a bit: Genes for the activity of dopamine are associated with motivation, curiosity, anxiety, and optimism. Genes for the metabolism of serotonin, another neurotransmitter, tend to modulate one’s degree of calm, stability, popularity, and religiosity. Testosterone is associated with being rational, analytical, exacting, independent, logical, rank-oriented, competitive, irreverent, and narcissistic. And the hormone estrogen is associated with being imaginative, creative, insightful, humane, sympathetic, agreeable, flexible, and verbal.

“So I had these four sheets of paper,” Fisher continued. “And I decided to give each a name. Serotonin became the Builder. Dopamine, the Explorer. Testosterone, the Director. And estrogen—I wish I’d called it the Ambassador or Diplomat, but I called it the Negotiator.” Myers-Briggs, she says, “clearly knew the four types but didn’t know the chemicals behind them.”

One hundred forty-six questions later, this is what I turned up. Not bad. (But when are these profiles ever painfully honest?)

The following analysis is based on your responses to our questionnaire. Your results identify your major and minor personality types, as well as the types with whom you’re likely to be compatible.

Your Major and Minor Personality Types
Characteristics of all four personality types can be found within each of us, but there is almost always one personality type that is dominant. We call this the major personality type.

The Chemistry Profile also identifies your minor or secondary personality type. You exhibit some aspects of this personality type, though not to the same degree as with your major type.
• Your major personality type = Negotiator
• Your minor personality type = Director

You are a NEGOTIATOR/director

You have a great overview of reality. You see many angles to the same issue and enjoy discussing multiple solutions to complex problems. You like to use your imagination and engage in creative theorizing.

You have executive social skills, easily picking up the gestures, facial expressions and speech patterns of others. You are intuitive; you generally understand people, and your sympathetic nature makes you pliant, adaptable and likeable.

Yet despite your charm and poise in large social situations, you often enjoy solitude or intense conversations with just one individual or a few close friends.

You are good at doing and thinking a lot of things at the same time. But when you focus on an issue, idea or problem, you like to concentrate in depth. You leave no stone unturned.

And with your insight, charm and intellectual bent, you make warm and interesting company.

Fisher posits that successful relationships are founded on both similarity and complementarity, so my Chemistry.com profile suggests which personality types will be an optimal match, with the idea that two people who share substantial compatibility can also balance each other through complementary differences. The night’s too short for me to turn the graphs into narratives.

“We also want someone who masks our flaws,” she explained. “For example, people with poor social skills sometimes gravitate toward people with good social skills. I’m an Explorer, so I don’t really need a partner who is socially skilled. That’s not essential to me. But it may be essential to a Director, who’s generally less socially skilled.”

Chemistry.com’s compatibility questionnaire also examines secondary personality traits. To illustrate, Fisher cited her own relationship. “I’m currently going out with a man,” she said, “and of course I made him take the test instantly. We’re both Explorers and older. I’m not sure two Explorers want to raise a baby together, because nobody will be home. But in addition, I’m a Negotiator and he’s a Director type. Our dominant personality is similar, but underneath, we’re complementary.”