Impact of Self-Descriptions and Photographs on Mediated Dating Interest

Abstract

This simulated dating experiment addresses the relative impact of photographs and self-descriptions on dating interest in White students in Los Angeles (n = 223). A previous study demonstrated that self-descriptions had little impact on dating success. This was attributed to obstacles in inspection and processing time, primacy effects, information overload, interference, mental discomfort, and low variability in descriptions. The present study controlled for these factors. Results show that for men the self-descriptions were half as important as the photographs, whereas for women the impact of the descriptions was equal to the photographs. This article includes a discussion of the contrast between findings in research on mating preference and actual dating studies, and the implications of its findings for dating and the dating industry.

KEYWORDS:

• attractiveness
• mate choice
• mediated dating
• online dating
• visual and language processing

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I received help from many sources. At LMU I thank Dr. Leland Swenson, Dr. R. Patricia Walsh, Therese Zettel, and Jenna Anderson for their advice and assistance. At TCD I am grateful to Dr. Cathal Walsh for statistical support.

Notes

*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Dependent Variable: Dating Interest. All independent variables entered, and two-way interactions. Only significant interactions are included (*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001).

Residual standard error: 1.813 on 665 degrees of freedom.

Multiple R ²: 0.74, adjusted R ²: 0.6523.

F-statistic: 8.573 on 226 and 665 DF, p value: <2.2e–16.

To understand the necessity of the multiple regression procedure, it is important to take note of the deceptive perspective that the linear deviations of the dating interest ratings from the pre ratings (see Table 1) provide. They suggest that both for men and women the impact of the photographs is greater than the impact of the descriptions because deviations from the photo pre ratings are lower than deviations from the description pre ratings. However, these values do not provide an accurate estimate of their impact on the total rating. The reason is that the variation in the mean preratings of the descriptions is much smaller than the variation in the mean preratings of the photographs. Therefore, the impact of the self-descriptions on variability in dating interest scores is subject to much more subtle and sensitive discriminative effects. Those are not taken into account in a direct linear comparison of deviations, but they are in the multiple regression procedure performed. Furthermore, because of differences in the preratings of male and female photographs, a direct comparison of deviations would provide inaccurate estimates of the gender effects in dating interest results.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jan M. A. de Vries

Jan M. A. de Vries is Lecturer and Psychology Subject Leader in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. The research described in this article was conducted at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, United States, where the author was Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology.