The evidence

The research behind Constellation

These aren't stories about Constellation users. They're real, published psychological research on the exact instruments our assessment is built on. This is why we trust the framework, and why you can too.

Personality · Big Five Inventory

Personality traits reliably predict relationship satisfaction

Dyrenforth, Kashy, Donnellan & Lucas (2010) studied over 20,000 couples across Australia, the UK, and Germany. Higher agreeableness and conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism, in either partner were consistently linked to greater relationship satisfaction.

Multiple longitudinal studies since (Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Solomon & Jackson, 2014) confirm neuroticism as one of the most consistent predictors of relationship strain over time, which is part of why personality sits at the center of our assessment rather than being an afterthought.

Attachment · ECR-S Scale

Attachment style is one of the strongest known predictors of relationship health

The Experiences in Close Relationships scale is one of the most widely used and validated tools in relationship psychology. Research consistently shows it reliably predicts conflict-resolution patterns and emotional-support behaviors between partners.

A 2024 Indian study (sampled across Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, and Ghaziabad) using the ECR-S specifically found attachment style meaningfully shaped relationship satisfaction among young Indian adults, directly relevant to who's actually using Constellation.

Family Values · Parenting-Style Research

The patterns you grew up with shape how you'll build a family

Diana Baumrind's foundational research (1971) established that the parenting patterns people grow up with (authoritative, authoritarian, or permissive) shape how they later approach their own relationships and eventual parenting choices. This framework remains the standard in developmental psychology today.

This is why we ask about parenting and family values before matching, not after. Misalignment here tends to surface only once a relationship gets serious, exactly when it's hardest to address.

Why we don't just score "similarity"

Compatibility is more nuanced than "opposites attract" or "similars attract"

The research is genuinely mixed on whether matching similar traits leads to better outcomes. Shiota & Levenson (2007) found that trait-by-trait similarity alone doesn't reliably predict satisfaction, and can even correlate negatively in long-term couples.

What does show a real correlation is congruence across a person's overall profile (Gonzaga, Campos & Bradbury, 2007), not any single trait in isolation. That's exactly why our compatibility score weighs attachment, personality, parenting values, and family dynamics together, rather than reducing you to one number on one scale.

References

Baumrind, D. (1971). Current patterns of parental authority. Developmental Psychology Monograph, 4(1, Pt. 2), 1–103.
Dyrenforth, P. S., Kashy, D. A., Donnellan, M. B., & Lucas, R. E. (2010). Predicting relationship and life satisfaction from personality in nationally representative samples from three countries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(4), 690–702.
Gonzaga, G. C., Campos, B., & Bradbury, T. (2007). Similarity, convergence, and relationship satisfaction in dating and married couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(1), 34–48.
Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (1995). The longitudinal course of marital quality and stability: A review of theory, method, and research. Psychological Bulletin, 118(1), 3–34.
Shiota, M. N., & Levenson, R. W. (2007). Birds of a feather don't always fly farthest: Similarity in Big Five personality predicts more negative marital satisfaction trajectories in long-term marriages. Psychology and Aging, 22(4), 666–675.
Wei, M., Russell, D. W., Mallinckrodt, B., & Vogel, D. L. (2007). The Experiences in Close Relationships Scale (ECR)-short form: Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88(2), 187–204.

Citations are provided for transparency. We didn't run these specific studies ourselves; we build our assessment on instruments and findings that are already peer-reviewed and widely used in relationship psychology.

See what psychology-based matching finds for you.

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