PSYPOST - A study in Computers in Human Behavior found that women are less likely to show interest in online dating profiles with facial features suggesting aggression (like a pronounced jawline or narrow eyes) and biographical details indicating traits such as narcissism, impulsiveness, or hostility towards women. These biographical details included language that dehumanizes or objectifies women. Typical online dating safety tips did not help women better detect these threats, highlighting the need for improved safety measures on dating platforms.
Study Reveals Women Detect Threats in Online Dating Profiles Through Facial Features and Biographical Cues
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What's the Best Age Gap in a Relationship?
ECONOMIST - Societal norms around romantic relationships often reference the "half your age plus seven" rule to gauge the appropriateness of age gaps. Research shows that men typically prefer younger women, regardless of their own age, while women tend to seek partners close to their age. The implications of these age preferences are mixed. Studies suggest that smaller age gaps may offer benefits in terms of relationship stability and shared experiences, but larger gaps are associated with differing divorce rates and longevity outcomes. Men with significantly younger partners tend to live longer, a benefit not mirrored for women with younger partners. Ultimately, personal choice plays a significant role in these relationships, challenging the applicability of traditional rules.
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How Men and Women Use Online Dating Differently
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY - In online dating, men generally prioritize visual cues, while women consider additional factors like intelligence and career, often communicated through text. Research from the University of Negev shows that text in profiles increases men's attractiveness but decreases women's. The study also found that the type of device used affects information processing: both men and women focus more on visuals when using mobiles, whereas women process more comprehensively on computers.
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Tinder and the Old-fashioned Art of Matchmaking
FINANCIAL TIMES - Tinder's 'Matchmaker' enables parents and friends to recommend dates and bring "your circle of trust into your dating journey". Mark Brooks, a consultant to dating apps [Courtland Brooks], says "Indian apps have been doing this for years." Matrimonial sites such as Shaadi.com let users say if their profile was created by themselves, a sibling, friend or parent. For those in the west, Brooks says, matchmaking features can be "amusing", even "transformative". We can be delusional about ourselves and our interests - notably our athleticism. "Some people really need a little reality check . . . Friends or family can spot potential red flags in profiles."
Colleen Sinclair, Professor at Louisiana State Uni., conducted an experiment to see if Americans would take advice regarding online dates. "Friends tend to be the primary source of relationship advice. Ultimately when you have lots of choices we like things that help us narrow them down. Whenever we're in a situation which [has] no script, our instinct is to go to others for help."
A recent Stanford University study found a large % of Tinder users were not looking for dates, with almost two-thirds already in a relationship. One of the authors said many "reported using the app for social connectedness, entertainment and distraction". As a parent, the prospect of checking out an offspring’s dating life is tantalising. Interfering might not ruin a budding relationship, but this constant presence does little to cultivate independence.
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New Study: Having or Wanting Children Influences Age Preferences When Dating
PSYPOST - Men's age preferences for partners are influenced by whether they have or want children, according to a study by the University of Lincoln. Researchers analysed data from 605,743 users of dating site eHarmony UK, finding that men who want or don't have children prefer younger women. Women's age preferences, however, were less linked to whether they had or wanted children. The findings supported evolutionary theories that men and women choose different qualities in a partner based on their contribution to offspring. The study also showed that those with children rated age as less important as a matching criterion.
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New Study Explains Success of Online Dating
ASU NEWS - "If you met your partner online, you were a little happier and a little less likely to break up or dissolve the marriage," said Liesel Sharabi, professor at Arizona State University. Sharabi wanted to know why. Her findings are outlined in a new study titled "The Enduring Effect of Internet Dating: Meeting Online and the Road to Marriage" in the journal Communication Research. Sharabi is director of ASU's Relationships and Technology Lab. Her research presents a view of online dating through 4 stages and 13 subcategories. Online dating allows participants to get the backstory before moving forward. "You don't have to worry that you're going to be 6 months into a relationship and just then learn something that is a deal breaker," said Sharabi, who also writes an online dating blog called Dating in the Digital Age for Psychology Today. Some relationships formed online took more time to develop, Sharabi said, with emotional intimacy preceding physical intimacy. It turns out this created a better foundation for a future union. Compatibility is key, and the more specific the search, the greater the chance of meeting someone with shared interests.
Mark Brooks: I think academics really love the business of love. It's fascinating, and fallow ground for making impactful scientific findings that can really help humanity. Please see the IDEA Academic Program.
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Why Single People Smell Different
BBC - There is a wealth of psychological and biological information stored in our scent, but for some reason we choose to ignore it. Body odour can reveal details about our health, the presence of diseases (cholera smells sweet, acute diabetes like rotten apples), and our diet. Men find women's body odour more pleasant and attractive during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, when women are most fertile, and least pleasant and attractive during menstruation. In one study, women were given T-shirts worn by random men and asked to rank them by how pleasant they were. Their order of preference followed the same pattern as something called Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) dissimilarity. The gene complex that encodes for HLA also encodes for some other proteins used in our immune response, and is useful as a shortcut for scientists to see what kind of protections our immune system can offer. If you have a partner who is genetically dissimilar in immune profile, then your children will have a better resistance to pathogens. It is an advantage to have a child with someone who has a dissimilar HLA profile. If you have a partner who is genetically dissimilar in BO and immune profile, then your children will have a better resistance to pathogens. The mechanism that causes HLA-dissimilarity to result in a better-smelling BO is not known.
Do humans use genetic information hidden in body odour to choose their partners? It would seem not. In a study of 3,700 married couples, the likelihood of people ending up with a HLA-dissimilar partner was no different to chance. We might have a preference for certain smells, and there might be a genetic reason for that, but we don't act upon smells when choosing who we marry.
Couples who had high HLA-dissimilarity - which presumably happened by chance - had the highest levels of sexual satisfaction and the highest levels of desire to have children.
The link between BO preference and genes spurred a fashion for T-shirt speed-dating and even "mail odour" services. But the evidence to support the idea we can make good dating decisions based on smell is unclear. We might say we prefer something, but in practice it would appear we do not make choices based on that preference. Why not? It might be that real-life scenarios are too complex to use scent information accurately.
by William Park
See full article at BBC
Mark Brooks: Dating based on odor? This is just too complex and unreliable to use as a component of compatibility in dating apps. But, perhaps that will change in the future.
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Fixing Freemium's Flaw
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW - A large-scale two year study (with Inner Circle) suggests that carefully managing the threshold for the number of referrals needed in order for referring customers to access the premium features can increase customers and generate more profitable ones. There's 8k+ dating sites in the world. In 2019, 39% of U.S. couples said they met online. In 2020 270m adults worldwide subscribed to a dating site, ~double 5 years ago. Most sites don't have a clear idea of how profitable referred customers are compared to the (originating) friends who invited them to join the site. The number of successful referrals users are required to make before they can access premium features (called the referral threshold) can have important effects on users' behavior. Referral-driven growth typically comes at a cost: as the number of referred users in the population grows, their collective level of engagement tends to fall. Raising the number of successful referrals needed to win free access to premium features did not have an impact on the relative activity of their converts. New members were as engaged as those invited by users in referral programs that had a lower threshold. Total revenue increased when we raised the number of successful referrals required for free access to the premium features. Adding additional referral requirements in exchange for premium features did not disincentivize some users. Tweaks could be dynamic: the platform could start by assigning a freemium plan to all users, and after assessing behavior, decide whom to give the option of joining its referrals-for-features program. Individuals value having their friends on the platform. Social referral programs designed to enhance the shared experience of online dating (for example, by organizing offline activities) could be particularly effective in increasing platform engagement.
See full article at Harvard Business Review
Mark Brooks: This study was run by Professor Ting Li and Professor Rodrigo Belo, Rotterdam School of Management. Given that the only mutual contacts I have with them on Linkedin are with Inner Circle, I'm going to infer that this study was with Inner Circle. In short, it's worthwhile amping up your price and proposition testing. Time to hire a data scientist if you don't already have one, or perhaps open up to experiments by academics like this. See IDEA's Project 0d8 at 0d8.com, btw.
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Should You Have Kids?
THE ATLANTIC - We (IDEA) bring people together for love and marriage, and most end up having kids. Fertility rates are down globally. Why? Is it because couples aren't happy having kids? An article in The Atlantic this week asks "What Becoming a Parent Really Does to Your Happiness." Here's a summary of the article - Mark Brooks
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Scholars argue if you want to be happy, be childless. What if the rewards of having children are different and deeper than happiness? Daniel Kahneman et al asked 900 employed women to report on activity happiness. Being with their children was less enjoyable than many other activities.
When a child is born, parents experience a decrease in happiness and a drop in marital satisfaction that doesn't usually recover until the children leave the house.
One study finds that fathers ages 26 to 62 actually get a happiness boost, while young or single parents suffer the greatest loss. There are geographic differences. A study of people in 22 countries found the extent to which children make you happy is influenced by whether your country has child-care policies such as paid parental leave. The country with the greatest happiness drop after you have children? USA!
A puzzle remains: Many people would have had happier lives and marriages had they chosen not to have kids - yet they still describe parenthood as the "best thing they've ever done." Memory distortion makes us remember peaks and forget awfulness.
There's more to life than happiness. > Satisfaction, purpose, and meaning.
Mark Brooks: I think Professor Paul Dolan put It best in his book "Happiness By Design". He resolves happiness to finding both pleasure and purpose in life. I can attest, kids give parents a huge dose of purpose.
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Is Finding Love on a Dating App More Likely to End in Divorce?
YAHOO NEWS - Researchers at Savanta ComRes discovered couples who connected romantically via a dating app were 6x more likely to divorce in the first three years of marriage. Those who were brought together by friends, family and neighbours tended to see their unions last longer. 2,027 married adults age 30+ were surveyed. There was no difference between short and long term focused services like Tinder vs eHarmony. The survey was commissioned by charity Marriage Foundation.
by Lauren Clark
See full article at Yahoo News
Mark Brooks: This looks fascinating, and indeed, hugely controversial! I'll invite Marriage Foundation / Savanta to speak at an LTR online conference.
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- Ariely, Dan
Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University - Barak, Azy
Professor of Psychology at the University in Haifa, Israel - Finkel, Eli J.
Associate Professor, Social Psychology at Northwestern University - Frost, Jeana H.
Research Scientist - Hitsch, Günter J.
Professor of Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business - McKenna, Katelyn Y.A.
Senior Lecturer, Department of Communication Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel - Norton, Michael I.
Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School - Rosenfeld, Michael J.
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology at Stanford University