Two users of an online-dating service, meeting in person for the first time, feel an instant spark of connection. Members of a string quartet describe the intangible and intuitive communication that makes their music more than the sum of its parts. The coach of a winning soccer team attributes the team’s success to the way players seamlessly coordinate their actions, producing achievements that surpass their individual talents. On stage, an ensemble of dancers blends together so instinctively that the audience experiences their performance as a complete, singular entity. A group of scientists working collaboratively soak up energy and vision from one another, each stimulating novel, creative insights in the others.

What Do These Examples Have In Common? 

Each depicts an interaction that can be described as having chemistry. People routinely use the term chemistry to refer to interactions among individuals who mesh well together, who have rapport, and whose coordinated actions seem natural, spontaneous, and highly effective—in other words, when people just seem to “click.” 

The metaphor of chemistry is widely used and easily understood, and most people appear to greatly value chemistry in their interactions and relationships. Surprisingly, however, psychological science has had little to say so far about what chemistry is, how it arises, and how it influences our connections with others.

Here’s How We Define Chemistry

Along with graduate student Annie Regan, we set out to provide a comprehensive framework for understanding this fascinating construct and stimulate new research into it. We immediately recognized that, to capture the senses in which people use this term, chemistry had to have several properties:

  • It had to be about the connection between individuals, rather than about their personal characteristics.
  • It had to be something that emerges out of social interaction.
  • It had to be something that was fundamentally visceral and not just involving people’s thoughts and beliefs.
  • It had to be more than just something positive and enjoyable.

We distinguish what chemistry “is” from what chemistry “feels like.” On the “is” side, we define chemistry as repeated moments of connection in which people reveal their goals, feelings, needs, or wishes (such as “I dream about sailing around the world”), and their partners respond in an encouraging, supportive manner ( “Awesome! Where’s the first place you will go?”). When chemistry emerges, these moments are typically mutual and recurring, and they can be observed in three different channels—words, nonverbal cues such as smiles and eye gaze, and behaviors (such as acts of kindness).

Furthermore, repeated moments of chemistry involve cycles of interaction—namely, I express-you respond, you express-I respond, I express-you respond, and so on—whose role in creating connection is well-documented in research. If lucky, people in such a cycle experience two kinds of synchrony. One kind of synchrony, relational synchrony, involves being in sync in terms of interests, goals, and perspectives, and the other kind, biobehavioral synchrony, involves being in sync in terms of the words we use (linguistic matching), the nonverbal expressions we display (leaning forward at the same time), or even our physiology. A sense of “flow”—or feeling focused and not self-conscious—is also common during chemistry.

As for what chemistry “feels like,” we propose that it has three elements, which we call the ABCs of chemistry: 

  • Affect (or emotion): Chemistry is positive, giving rise to attraction toward the other. Liking, caring, and concern are intrinsic to chemistry, and, in the romantic context, often are accompanied by high-arousal emotions such as passionate love and lust. 
  • Behavior: When we perceive that we have chemistry, we feel able to coordinate our actions and strivings to pursue some kind of mutually desired goal, whether that goal is to win a dance contest, write a book, or engage in an engrossing conversation. The benefits of this sort of coordination and interdependence are evident in professional relationships, such as the song-writing team of Lennon and McCartney, as well as personal relationships, such as when long-term romantic partners work together to meet their shared life goals to raise children or retire early to a warm climate. Long-term relationships of this sort are often characterized by feedback loops—for example, chemistry helps pairs and teams succeed at their goals, and that success heightens their chemistry by producing more moments of connection.
  • Cognition (or thoughts): Chemistry gives a sense of shared identity—people see the world similarly and approach tasks as a “we” rather than an “I.” The researchers Arthur and Elaine Aron refer to this as “including the other in the self.” In romantic couples, perceiving a high degree of similarity—even if this perception overshoots reality—and approaching life interdependently are essential components of “couple identity,” and we believe a similar process operates in other contexts, such as work and athletic teams, families, and schools. 

Most people resonate with the metaphor of chemistry and find chemistry compelling, desirable, and highly rewarding. We hope that our ideas can be a springboard not only to more research and theory, but also to creating more chemistry in people’s daily lives.


For Further Reading

Aron, A., Lewandowski, G. W., Jr., Mashek, D., & Aron, E. N. (2013). The self-expansion model of motivation and cognition in close relationships. In J. A. Simpson & L. Campbell (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of close relationships (pp. 90–115). Oxford University Press.

Reis, H. T., Regan, A., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2022). Interpersonal chemistry: What is it, how does it emerge, and how does it operate? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17, 530-559.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691621994241

Harry T. Reis is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester. His research examines interpersonal processes that affect the course and conduct of close relationships.

Sonja Lyubomirsky is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. Her research focuses on how and why gratitude, kindness, and social connection makes people happy.