The Truth About Online Dating

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN -- Jan 30 -- Research conducted by Jeana Frost (Boston Uni / MIT) suggests ~20% of online daters admit to deception. If you ask them how many other people are lying, however--an interviewing tactic that probably gets closer to the truth--that number jumps to 90%. Psychologist Jeffrey Hancock (Cornell Uni) and communications professor Nicole Ellison (Michigan State Uni) bring people into a lab, where they measure height and weight and then check the numbers against those in their online profiles. Online profiles shave off about five pounds and add perhaps an inch in height.  Economists Guenter Hitsch and Ali Hortaçsu (University of Chicago) and psychologist Dan Ariely (MIT) compared heights and weights of online daters with national census data. Online height is exaggerated by an inch or so for both men and women. Women appear to understate their weight more as they get older: by five pounds in their 20s, 17 pounds in their 30s and 19 pounds in their 40s. Men's profiles without photos draw one fourth the response of those with photos, and women's profiles without photos draw one sixth the response.

Why so much inaccuracy? Sara Kiesler (Carnegie Mellon), suggest that "computer-mediated communication" is disinhibiting, causing people to say just about anything they feel like saying. There are no physical cues, raised eyebrows or grimaces to keep people's behavior in check so online daters tend to construct what Ellison and colleagues Jennifer Gibbs (Rutgers) and Rebecca Heino (Georgetown), call an "ideal self" rather than a real one.

For a psychometric evaluation to be taken seriously by scientists, the test needs to be shown to be reliable (you can count on it to produce stable results), and it needs to be shown to be a valid measure of what it is supposed to be measuring. i.e. that romantic pairings are actually successful. None have. Jupiter Research reports (phone survey of 2,000) "barely one quarter of users reported being very satisfied or satisfied with online personals sites." Many paying members get frustrated by a lack of response to their e-mails; the vast majority of people in the profiles simply cannot respond. Engage allows members to bring friends and family with them online to check people out and match them up. This is the next phase and the "community" approach to online matching. "Virtual dating" is being developed. Frost, Ariely (MIT) and Michael I. Norton (Harvard) report that people who had a chance to interact with each other (by computer only) on a virtual tour of a museum subsequently had more successful face-to-face meetings than people who had viewed only profiles. FULL ARTICLE @ DRROBERTEPSTEIN.COM

Mark Brooks: In short, peer groups are better than background checks, personality profiling has a loooong way to go, and virtual dating via video and voice will be the basis of a new generation of dating sites that will aim to help people gage chemistry earlier on, prior to meeting.

Comments

[Kathryn Lord]

Wow. When Internet dating gets the treatment from Scientific American, you know that "we" have arrived. Was it only five+ years ago, when I started as a Romance Coach, when it was hard to find ANYTHING published about finding a sweetheart online, let alone anything reputable?

This article contains lots of "meat" that I will be writing on in the future on my blog (www.Find-a-Sweetheart.com/blog). For instance, an interesting nugget the author noted was the "false negative problem" of sites that determine who you will and WON'T meet: What if your best mate is not one of the site's picks for you?

However, the part I found most interesting was validating a theme I have been writing and talking about for some time: The problem of paid vs. unpaid members. While certainly this is a financial issue for dating sites, neglected are their customers, most seriously, their best and paying customers. The A#1 complaint of every single one of my Romance clients is "Why don't they answer my emails?" And until I have explained, NOT ONE of those clients has understood the phenomenon of the huge percentage of unpaid "members" to paid (at least 11 to 1 on Match.com). The impact on email response is huge: On average, at least 11 out of every 12 first emails that a single sends out would be to a non-paying member, who would then need to decide if paying $25 or so to answer this email is worth it. That is a powerful disincentive to even send a polite "No, thanks."

Singles, especially those new to dating sites, are tender and easily discouraged or even devastated by non-response to their heart-felt inquiries. These folks need to be informed of what the odds of first emails being answered really are and encouraged to stay in the game. Remember, these folks are your paying customers!

Also, serious consideration should be given to some sort of labeling system so that singles can tell who is a paying member and who is not. One of my readers suggested a "$" sign on the profile, which I thought was a great idea. Yahoo! Personals "Premier" level of membership actually does weed the paying from the non-paying (one has to pay to be a Premier member, and then gets a purple "P" seal on one's profile), though Yahoo! does not state that factor as an advantage for "Premier" membership. Common sense would suggest that once such a system were in place, that paying members would seek out other paying members to contact, those first emails would be more likely to be answered (since these folks would be paying members), and that non-paying members would be more likely to pay up to get contacted, or be at risk of appearing cheap.

You can read more of my writings about this subject here http://www.find-a-sweetheart.com/blog/item/finally_the_truth_comes_out/
(and see another post on the topic with an energetic set of comments from readers:http://www.find-a-sweetheart.com/blog/item/matchcom_makes_newsbits/ )

[James Houran]

Hi all,

The Scientific American article is also significant in that a major periodical finally expanded on a criticism for which I and my research associate, Dr. Rense Lange, have been known for many years now -- the notion that compatibility testing needs to meet professional testing standards in order to serve the best interest of the consumer and the industry. Unfortunately, as we have shown in peer-reviewed articles, industry and academic conference presentations and in many media interviews, nearly all compatibility tests do NOT satisfy such requirements.

Having said that, the SI article is somewhat misleading in suggesting that effective compatibility testing is an urban myth of sorts and that no such assessment is available. Nonsense! The disappointment comes from expecting a compatibility test do what it wasn't designed to do. For instance, most decent compatibility tests focus on "psychological compatibility" between two people, as opposed to "physical compatibility or chemistry." Dr. Glenn Wilson (who I respectfully refer to as the "father of modern compatibility testing") said it best, "a compatibility test won't tell you if you are going to fall in love with someone in an impulsive, 'chemical' way; only if it's a good idea if you do!"

I am happy to talk with anyone who wants a balanced and responsible view on compatibility testing.

Thanks,

James Houran, Ph.D.
Online Dating Magazine

[Fernando Ardenghi]

"....personality profiling has a loooong way to go..."
Nonsense, the 16PF5 test is ready since 1949!!!

The problem is how to calculate "compatibility" between prospectives mates, not personality profiling measurement, because as I suspect many actual online dating sites like Chemistry, Cybersuitors, eHarmony, PerfectMatch, True are using only (simple/multiple) linear regression equations and this causes the whole precision is less than you could achieve searching by your own!!! Also they use MBTI, DISC or Big 5 / Big 7 instead of 16PF5.

As for Dr. Glenn D. Wilson, he launched his own online dating site (Cybersuitors) during 2001 and 6 years later it is a complete fiasco.

The Only Truth About Online Dating is ... the U.S. (and World) online dating market remains enormous!!!
- There are now more than 900 "Online Dating & Social Networking Sites" at the United States and Canada, but top 10 Online Dating sites have 80%/85% of actual market. If you add net paid subscribers of all U.S. dating sites, perhaps the total is less than 5 million!!! What dating sites are doing / will do to court the other U.S. 80 million singles not seriously dating online?
Great innovations like high reliability personality matching method.

Kindest Regards,

Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
[email protected]

[James Houran]

Dear List,

While many or most compatibility tests may well use the statistical approach of linear regression in their matching algorithms, that should not be taken to mean that all of the companies identifed by Fernando Ardenghi use that technique.

Moreover, the Big Five Model of Personality (Openness, Contientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism) is widely held to be the most reliable model of personality, it has good cross-cultural validity and it conforms to modern test theory modeling. Moreover, personality is only one of many different types of variables that need to be considered in matching -- and then there is the issue of similarity and complementarity of partner's characteristics. Strict similarity is not the way to go!

Thanks,

James Houran, Ph.D.
Online Dating Magazine

[Fernando Ardenghi]

Dear Dr. Houran:

How do you explain (the well known data) that many online daters opt for sameness (when they search) more often than chance would predict ?

Big-5/Big-7 as a main core of compatibility matching is not enough for online dating, because Dating Sites have very big databases (like 20,000,000 of different profiles!!!) and if Big-5/Big-7 is used, the whole precision is less than you could achieve searching by your own!!!
"For detailed feedback or predictive purposes, one should assess the more specific primary factors. Research has shown that more specific factors like the primary scales of the 16PF Questionnaire predict actual behavior better than the Big 5 Global Factors. For example, one extravert (a bold, fearless, high-energy type) may differ considerably from another (a sweet, warm, sensitive type), depending on the extraversion-related primary scale score patterns, so deeper analysis is typically warranted" source IPAT's 16PF5 Test Results Manual.

Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
[email protected]

[James Houran]

Great conversation, Fernando!

It's always nice to chat with you about these issues :)

As far as similarity and online dating "search," I am not aware of any solid research that shows online daters opt for "sameness" statistically more often than chance would dictate. I suspect online daters do opt for sameness on SOME variables, but certainly not all. Case in point...aside from homesexuality and bisexuality, online daters are looking for the opposite sex. And even if the trend for "sameness" is there, what does that prove?! People do find comfort in familiarity, but the wealth of songs around the world that deal with break ups nicely underscores the fact that people are often not good at relationships -- nor are people really taught to be. So, perhaps they should break old patterns (like trying to find someone "exactly" like them or trying to find someone that fits their ideal of a "soul mate") and instead try something new. Common sense is a tool that should be used sparingly, but common sense tells us time and again that being too similar is just as much of a challenge as being too different. The cutting edge research on the similarity vs. complementarity issue strongly suggests that it takes both to sustain long term, psychological compatibility.

Now as for the 16PF, I am not surprised its own Manual makes the claim you cited! The 16PF is not the personality model of choice among psychologists worldwide, and to my knowledge, it has not been properly validated with modern test theory. Moreover, personality variables are only one component in the compatibility equation (and research shows that similarity on personality variables is not crucial at all).

For those interested in what truly is the best predictor of volitional behavior, check out the varibales of Attitudes and Social Norms in the classic "Theory of Reasoned Action." Excellent reading for researchers and marketers alike!

Thanks,

James Houran, Ph.D.
Online Dating Magazine