Similarity within romantic couples forms one component of the formation and maintenance of relationships, meaning that, romantic partners’ views about themselves and the world are theorized to converge over time. We advance prior research on romantic couple similarities using cross-sectional or time-lagged designs, testing convergence with dyadic trajectories of change—how changes in one person relate to changes in their partner. Dyadic growth curve models assessed initial similarities, and longitudinal convergence, for 35 measures of well-being and individual differences in 171 mixed-gender couples from a national longitudinal study (the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Survey). Results indicated consistent average-level similarities between romantic partners, a few instances of short-term convergence in sociopolitical views, and the consistent pattern that changes in people occurred independently to their partners. Findings advance theory on romantic interdependence by emphasizing the perspective that romantic partners’ convergence occurs as subjective experience rather than externally measured unification.

浪漫情侣之间的相似性构成了关系形成和维持的一个组成部分，这意味着浪漫伴侣对自己和世界的看法会随着时间的推移而趋于一致。我们使用横截面或时间滞后的设计推进了对浪漫情侣相似性的先前研究，测试了二元变化轨迹的收敛性——一个人的变化如何与他们的伴侣的变化相关。二元增长曲线模型评估了全国纵向研究（新西兰态度和价值观调查）中 171 对混合性别夫妇的 35 项幸福感和个体差异的初始相似性和纵向收敛性。结果表明浪漫伴侣之间一致的平均水平相似性，社会政治观点的一些短期趋同实例，以及人们的变化独立于他们的合作伙伴发生的一致模式。通过强调浪漫伴侣的融合是作为主观体验而不是外部衡量的统一发生的观点，研究结果推进了关于浪漫相互依赖的理论。