"I Love You and I Like You": Why the Opposites of Ben and Leslie Work

Ben and Leslie. Andy and April. Ann and...lots of people, but especially Chris. The show Parks and Recreation features a lot of comical relationships that seem larger than life. While the show is funny, and the relationships of the characters appear to be too ridiculous to be real at times, I dare you to tell me that the following video doesn't make you shed a few tears of joy for the beauty of a happy and successful relationship.

Ok. Hold on... Let me wipe away the tears... Ok now I can go on. 

It seems at times that Ben and Leslie's relationship could not be more perfect. At the same time, Ben and Leslie are different in so many ways. If you are unfamiliar with Ben Wyatt, he is an analytical, nerdy accountant who could bore you for hours comparing and contrasting Star Trek and Star Wars and describing the discrepancies between the Game of Thrones books and television series. 

Leslie Knope, however, is far from analytical. She is passionate about her work in city government, and acts upon her feelings and emotions. She is high energy, highly attached and committed to her friendships, and loves breakfast food more than anything.

Though this relationship starts rocky, with Ben trying to reduce Leslie's Parks and Rec. department for logical, financial reasons, they become close very quickly. The biggest reason why Leslie and Ben's relationship, both working and romantic, functions so well is probably due to complementarity. 

Dryer and Horowitz (1997) conducted a study in which participants interacted with a confederate and then rated their satisfaction in their interaction. Participants were screened first to determine whether they were dominant or submissive in their interpersonal interactions. The confederates then read a script about how they would deal with an interpersonal relationship, giving an either dominant or submissive response. This created four levels, with participants of both interpersonal personality types being randomly selected to hear one of the two answers to the prompt. Dryer and Horowitz (1997) found that people with dominant AND submissive personality types reported being more satisfied with an interaction with someone of the opposite personality type as them. 

Using this study as a model, Leslie clearly represents the more dominant partner in her tendency to micromanage all things within her work life and relationships, with Ben being the submissive partner. Thankfully complementarity allows for the old saying "opposites attract" to play out in a way that gives us one of the best television couples of all time. 

-Tyler Wright

Works Cited

Dryer, D.C. & Horowitz, L.M. (1997). When do opposites attract? Interpersonal complementarity versus similarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(3), 592-603.