Planned Behavior in the Use of Dating Apps by Women in Korea

Abstract

While South Koreans tend to quickly adopt new technologies, such as mobile apps, without facing technological difficulties, this population uses dating apps at a relatively low rate compared with Western countries. The current study employes the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine psychological factors, as opposed to technological factors, to explain why South Koreans—particularly female young adults—rarely use dating apps to find potential romantic partners. Participants were 309 women who completed an online survey assessing their attitudes toward dating apps, subjective norms regarding dating apps, and perceived risks. As for behavioral control, factors of the original TPB were collected, and the relationships among these factors were analyzed. The results indicated that the initially suggested model did not show an acceptable fit of the data. Among the three factors, attitude towards dating apps was the most important in predicting intention, while actual usage of the apps negatively affected future intentions. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords:

• Dating app
• online dating
• theory of planned behavior
• perceived risk
• korean youth culture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giyeon Baek

Giyeon Baek is a PhD candidate of Department of Communication and Media at Ewha Womans University, South Korea. Her research interests include media science and technology studies, gender studies, critical data studies, and multimodal discourse analysis.

Hye Eun Lee

Hye Eun Lee is a professor at Ewha Womans University in Korea. Her research focuses on interpersonal and intercultural communication. Specifically, she studies the impact of messages on attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors across cultures.