Closer look at a matching simulation: Reply to Aron.

The five modifications Aron (1988) proposes for our mate-selection simulation address reasonable concerns, each of which we touched upon when we introduced the simulation (Kalick & Hamilton, 1986). Nevertheless, Aron has exaggerated the impact of his considerations on the outcome of our type-preference simulation. We tested the effects of modifications suggested by his critiques and found that our simulation, results, and previous conclusions were not compromised. We reiterate that we do not claim that a type preference accounts for all of the intracouple attractiveness correlation observed among actual couples, and we consider the relationship between simulation modeling and real-world social science research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)