Gender Differences in Online Dating: What Do We Know So Far? A Systematic Literature Review
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paper_title: Internet dating and respectable women: Gender expectations in an untraditional partnership and marriage market - the case of Slovenia

paper_content:

Some theoreticians support notions of the Internet as a media that makes the ::: social differences of those who use it irrelevant or at least less important. ::: The Internet is also often regarded as a medium that improves the free ::: expression of thoughts and wishes of marginalised groups that cannot express ::: themselves in face-to-face relationships due to several normative obstacles. ::: The article deals with the question of gendered normativity related to ::: expressions of femininity in the case of building of intimate romantic ::: partnership within Internet dating. It is based on data gathered by ::: qualitative research. 66 in-depth semi-structured interviews with 34 men and ::: 32 women with Internet dating experiences were conducted in Slovenia in order ::: to get insight into several sociological aspects of internet dating, among ::: which question of gendered expectations related to partnership and family ::: building will be discussed in article. Results show traditional expectations ::: of gender roles are more pervasive as could be expected. Traditional ::: normative understandings of gender were identified especially in the field of ::: expectations related to women and womanhood and were revealed in men’s ::: hierarchical positioning of women regarding their status, in women’s ::: endeavours to present themselves as respectable and in men’s disapproval of ::: women’s sexualities.
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paper_title: Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues

paper_content:

Marital discord is costly to children, families, and communities. The advent of the Internet, social networking, and on-line dating has affected how people meet future spouses, but little is known about the prevalence or outcomes of these marriages or the demographics of those involved. We addressed these questions in a nationally representative sample of 19,131 respondents who married between 2005 and 2012. Results indicate that more than one-third of marriages in America now begin on-line. In addition, marriages that began on-line, when compared with those that began through traditional off-line venues, were slightly less likely to result in a marital break-up (separation or divorce) and were associated with slightly higher marital satisfaction among those respondents who remained married. Demographic differences were identified between respondents who met their spouse through on-line vs. traditional off-line venues, but the findings for marital break-up and marital satisfaction remained significant after statistically controlling for these differences. These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself.
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paper_title: The Social demography of internet dating in the United States

paper_content:

The objective of this article is to identify the sociodemographic correlates of Internet dating net of selective processes that determine who is "at risk." We also examine the role of computer literacy, social networks, and attitudes toward Internet dating among single Internet users. Copyright (c) 2010 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.
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paper_title: Sex Differences in Social Behavior : A Social-role interpretation

paper_content:

Contents: The Analysis of Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A New Theory and a New Method. Sex Differences in Helping Behavior. Sex Differences in Aggressive Behavior. Sex Differences in Other Social Behaviors. The Interpretation of Sex Differences in Social Behavior.
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paper_title: Internet dating: a British survey

paper_content:

Purpose – An online survey was carried out with the purpose of finding out the extent to which internet users subscribe to online dating services. The paper aims to assess users' experiences of such services and their eventual outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained through a self‐completion online questionnaire survey posted on the website of a leading internet research agency, utilising its online panel of c. 30,000 UK respondents.Findings – More than 3,800 online panellists responded of whom 29 per cent said they had used an online dating site. Most of these respondents (90 per cent) had spent up to £200 on internet dating in the past two years, with 70 per cent of users achieving at least one date, 43 per cent enjoying at least one sexual relationship, and 9 per cent finding a marriage partner.Research limitations/implications – Despite the limitations over sample control of self‐completion surveying, a large online sample was achieved that indicated the growing importance of the int...
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paper_title: The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data.

paper_content:

This paper presents a general statistical methodology for the analysis of multivariate categorical data arising from observer reliability studies. The procedure essentially involves the construction of functions of the observed proportions which are directed at the extent to which the observers agree among themselves and the construction of test statistics for hypotheses involving these functions. Tests for interobserver bias are presented in terms of first-order marginal homogeneity and measures of interobserver agreement are developed as generalized kappa-type statistics. These procedures are illustrated with a clinical diagnosis example from the epidemiological literature.
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paper_title: What makes you click?—Mate preferences in online dating

paper_content:

We estimate mate preferences using a novel data set from an online dating service. The data set contains detailed information on user attributes and the decision to contact a potential mate after viewing his or her profile. This decision provides the basis for our preference estimation approach. A potential problem arises if the site users strategically shade their true preferences. We provide a simple test and a bias correction method for strategic behavior. The main findings are (i) There is no evidence for strategic behavior. (ii) Men and women have a strong preference for similarity along many (but not all) attributes. (iii) In particular, the site users display strong same-race preferences. Race preferences do not differ across users with different age, income, or education levels in the case of women, and differ only slightly in the case of men. For men, but not for women, the revealed same-race preferences correspond to the same-race preference stated in the users’ profile. (iv) There are gender differences in mate preferences; in particular, women have a stronger preference than men for income over physical attributes.
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paper_title: Who Visits Online Dating Sites? Exploring Some Characteristics of Online Daters

paper_content:

Although online dating has become an important strategy in finding a romantic partner, academic research into the antecedents of online dating is still scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate (a) the demographic predictors of online dating and (b) the validity of two opposite hypotheses that explain users' tendency to use the Internet for online dating: the social compensation and the rich-get-richer hypotheses. We presented 367 single Dutch Internet users between 18 and 60 years old with an online questionnaire. We found that online dating was unrelated to income and educational level. Respondents between 30 and 50 years old were the most active online daters. In support of the rich-get-richer hypothesis, people low in dating anxiety were more active online daters than people high in dating anxiety.
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paper_title: Mate selection in cyberspace: The intersection of race, gender, and education

paper_content:

In this article, the authors examine how race, gender, and education jointly shape interaction among heterosexual Internet daters. They find that racial homophily dominates mate-searching behavior for both men and women. A racial hierarchy emerges in the reciprocating process. Women respond only to men of similar or more dominant racial status, while nonblack men respond to all but black women. Significantly, the authors find that education does not mediate the observed racial preferences among white men and white women. White men and white women with a college degree are more likely to contact and to respond to white daters without a college degree than they are to black daters with a college degree.
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paper_title: The influence of biological and personality traits on gratifications obtained through online dating websites

paper_content:

Women were less likely to use online dating sites to find sexual partners.Homosexual uses: relationship, sex partner, distraction, and convenient companion.Neurotics use ODSs for identity, convenient companion, and distraction. Online dating sites (ODSs) have become popular with users trying to find partners. The purpose of this study was to determine the role that biological and personality traits play in the use of online dating websites. A cross sectional survey with 678 participants-including cohorts from college as well as the general population-provided data for this study. The Five Factor Model personality model (FFM), sexual orientation, and biological sex were utilized as antecedents to the uses of and gratifications from online dating sites. Results uncover sex and sexual orientation differences in both personality traits and gratifications sought from online dating sites. Specifically, women and homosexuals were found to be more neurotic, women were more agreeable, and homosexuals were more open to experiences. Homosexual users sought a wider range of gratifications (relationship, sex partner, distraction, and convenient companion) from online dating sites than their heterosexual counterparts. Women were less likely to use ODSs to find sexual partners, but more likely to use ODSs to be social. Those who were neurotic use dating sites to build an identity, as a convenient companion, and as a distraction. People who are open to experiences were found to use dating sites to be social. Disagreeable people use dating sites because of peer pressure and as a status symbol, and conscientious people were found to use dating sites to find a relationship.
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paper_title: Overcoming relationship-initiation barriers: The impact of a computer-dating system on sex role, shyness, and appearance inhibitions

paper_content:

A survey of the users of an online computer-mediated matchmaking service showed that their communication patterns and objectives varied by their sex, shyness level, and appearance. Men generally contacted women more than vice versa, but a substantial minority of the women contacted a great number of men, suggesting that the safety and anonymity the system offered helped them break free from traditional sex role norms. More than half of the women reported starting a romantic or sexual relationship through the system, as compared to less than a third of the men, reflecting, in part, that men outnumber women on the system nearly three to one. Users who scored higher on a shyness scale were much more likely than less shy users to say they were using the system to find romance or sex, suggesting shier users employ the system as a way to overcome their inhibitions. Women who rated their own appearance as average were less likely to be contacted by men than those who rated their appearance as above average, but there was no significant difference between appearance groups concerning the likelihood of starting a romantic or sexual relationship. Intrinsic aspects of this computer-mediated matchmaking system helped some users overcome relationship-initiation barriers rooted in sex role, shyness, and appearance inhibitions.
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paper_title: Internet dating: a British survey

paper_content:

Purpose – An online survey was carried out with the purpose of finding out the extent to which internet users subscribe to online dating services. The paper aims to assess users' experiences of such services and their eventual outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained through a self‐completion online questionnaire survey posted on the website of a leading internet research agency, utilising its online panel of c. 30,000 UK respondents.Findings – More than 3,800 online panellists responded of whom 29 per cent said they had used an online dating site. Most of these respondents (90 per cent) had spent up to £200 on internet dating in the past two years, with 70 per cent of users achieving at least one date, 43 per cent enjoying at least one sexual relationship, and 9 per cent finding a marriage partner.Research limitations/implications – Despite the limitations over sample control of self‐completion surveying, a large online sample was achieved that indicated the growing importance of the int...
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paper_title: Income Attraction: An Online Dating Field Experiment

paper_content:

We measured gender differences in preferences for mate income ex-ante to interaction (“income attraction”) in a field experiment on one of China's largest online dating websites. To rule out unobserved factors correlated with income as the basis of attraction, we randomly assigned income levels to 360 artificial profiles and recorded the incomes of nearly 4000 “visits” to full versions of these profiles from search engine results, which displayed abbreviated versions. We found that men of all income levels visited our female profiles of different income levels at roughly equal rates. In contrast, women of all income levels visited our male profiles with higher incomes at higher rates. Surprisingly, these higher rates increased with the women's own incomes and even jumped discontinuously when the male profiles’ incomes went above that of the women's own. Our male profiles with the highest level of income received 10 times more visits than the lowest. This gender difference in ex-ante preferences for mate income could help explain marriage and spousal income patterns found in prior empirical studies.
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paper_title: For Love or Money? The Influence of Personal Resources and Environmental Resource Pressures on Human Mate Preferences

paper_content:

A growing body of evidence shows that human mating preferences, like those of other animal species, can vary geographically. For example, women living in areas with a high cost of living have been shown to seek potential mates that can provide resources (e.g., large salaries). In this study, we present data from a large (N = 2944) nationally representative (United States) sample of Internet dating profiles. The profiles allowed daters’ to report their own income and the minimum income they desired in a dating partner, and we analyzed these data at the level of zip code. Our analysis shows that women engage in more resource seeking than men. We also find a positive relationship between cost of living in the dater’s zip code and resource seeking among both men and women. Importantly, however, this relationship disappears if one’s own income is accounted for in the analysis; that is, individuals of both sexes seek mates with an income similar to their own, regardless of local resource pressures. Our data highlight the importance of considering individual characteristics when measuring the effects of environmental factors on behavior.
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paper_title: Sex Differences in the Attractiveness Halo Ef- fect in the Online Dating Environment

paper_content:

The following study with 113 participants analyzes the evaluation bias effects that happen when people are confronted with a typical profile of a online dating service that contains a false photo, i.e. a photo that obviously does not portray the profile owner. It is known that profile photos have a great impact how the profile owner is judged. As predicted by the attractiveness halo effect, an attractive photo leads to better evaluations of the displayed person than an unattractive photo. The results of this study show that even if the evaluator knows that the photo does not actually portray the profile owner, he is nevertheless influenced by the perceived attractiveness of the displayed person. But this is only the case for men judging women. Women seem to be more resistant against this automatic evaluation bias. The findings are fully in line with other empirical findings that support an evolutionary perspective, namely that men ascribe a higher value to physical attractiveness in judging women than women do in judging men.
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paper_title: Matching and sorting in online dating

paper_content:

Using data on user attributes and interactions from an online dating site, we estimate mate preferences, and use the Gale-Shapley algorithm to predict sta ble matches. The predicted matches are similar to the actual matches achieved by the dating site, and the actual matches are approximately efficient. Outof-sample predictions of offline matches, i.e., marriages, exhibit assortative mating patterns similar to those observed in actual marriages. Thus, mate pref erences, without resort to search frictions, can generate sorting in marriages. However, we underpredict some of the correlation patterns; search frictions may play a role in explaining the discrepancy. (
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paper_title: What makes you click?—Mate preferences in online dating

paper_content:

We estimate mate preferences using a novel data set from an online dating service. The data set contains detailed information on user attributes and the decision to contact a potential mate after viewing his or her profile. This decision provides the basis for our preference estimation approach. A potential problem arises if the site users strategically shade their true preferences. We provide a simple test and a bias correction method for strategic behavior. The main findings are (i) There is no evidence for strategic behavior. (ii) Men and women have a strong preference for similarity along many (but not all) attributes. (iii) In particular, the site users display strong same-race preferences. Race preferences do not differ across users with different age, income, or education levels in the case of women, and differ only slightly in the case of men. For men, but not for women, the revealed same-race preferences correspond to the same-race preference stated in the users’ profile. (iv) There are gender differences in mate preferences; in particular, women have a stronger preference than men for income over physical attributes.
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paper_title: Homophily in online dating: when do you like someone like yourself?

paper_content:

Psychologists have found that actual and perceived similarity between potential romantic partners in demographics, attitudes, values, and attractiveness correlate positively with attraction and, later, relationship satisfaction. Online dating systems provide a new way for users to identify and communicate with potential partners, but the information they provide differs dramatically from what a person might glean from face-to-face interaction. An analysis of dyadic interactions of approximately 65,000 heterosexual users of an online dating system in the U.S. showed that, despite these differences, users of the system sought people like them much more often than chance would predict, just as in the offline world. The users' preferences were most strongly same-seeking for attributes related to the life course, like marital history and whether one wants children, but they also demonstrated significant homophily in self-reported physical build, physical attractiveness, and smoking habits.
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paper_title: Predicting User Replying Behavior on a Large Online Dating Site

paper_content:

Online dating sites have become popular platforms for people to look for potential romantic partners. Many online dating sites provide recommendations on compatible partners based on their proprietary matching algorithms. It is important that not only the recommended dates match the user’s preference or criteria, but also the recommended users are interested in the user and likely to reciprocate when contacted. The goal of this paper is to predict whether an initial contact message from a user will be replied to by the receiver. The study is based on a large scale real-world dataset obtained from a major dating site in China with more than sixty million registered users. We formulate our reply prediction as a link prediction problem of social networks and approach it using a machine learning framework. The availability of a large amount of user profile information and the bipartite nature of the dating network present unique opportunities and challenges to the reply prediction problem. We extract user-based features from user profiles and graph-based features from the bipartite dating network, apply them in a variety of classification algorithms, and compare the utility of the features and performance of the classifiers. Our results show that the user-based and graph-based features result in similar performance, and can be used to effectively predict the reciprocal links. Only a small performance gain is achieved when both feature sets are used. Among the five classifiers we considered, random forests method outperforms the other four algorithms (naive Bayes, logistic regression, KNN, and SVM). Our methods and results can provide valuable guidelines to the design and performance of recommendation engine for online dating sites.
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paper_title: Who's Right and Who Writes: People, Profiles, Contacts, and Replies in Online Dating

paper_content:

In this analysis of profiles and messaging behavior on a major online dating service, we find that, consistent with predictions of evolutionary psychology, women as compared to men state more restrictive preferences for their ideal date. Furthermore, women contact and reply to others more selectively than men. Additionally, we identify connections among messaging behavior, textual self-descriptions in dating profiles, and relationship-relevant traits such as neuroticism.
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paper_title: Conditional mate preferences: Factors influencing preferences for height

paper_content:

Abstract Physical stature plays an important role in human mate choice because it may signal dominance, high status, access to resources, and underlying heritable qualities. Although past research has examined overall preferences for height, we propose these preferences are modified by evolved mechanisms that consider one’s own height and prevailing social norms. We examined this proposal using samples of 2000 personal ads and 382 undergraduates. Both sexes preferred relationships where the woman was shorter when specifying the shortest acceptable, tallest acceptable, and ideal dating partner. In the personal ads sample, this norm was more strongly enforced by women than by men: 23% of men compared to only 4% of women would accept a dating relationship where the woman was taller. Preferences for the male-taller norm were less pronounced in short men and tall women, who shifted towards preferring someone closer to their own height. This limited their potential dating pool but ensured they would select a mate within the typical range of variation for height. Surprisingly, endorsement of traditional gender role norms was only weakly related to height preferences, particularly for women. These findings highlight the utility of examining how evolutionary factors, including endorsement of social norms, may influence mate preferences.
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paper_title: Revealing the 'real' me, searching for the 'actual' you: Presentations of self on an internet dating site

paper_content:

This paper considers the presentation of self on an internet dating site. Thirty men and thirty women were interviewed about their online dating experiences. They were asked about how they constructed their profiles and how they viewed other individuals’ profiles. What types of presentations of self led to more successful offline romantic relationships were also investigated. Additionally, gender differences were examined. In line with previous research on presentation of self online, individuals were quite strategic in their online presentations. However, important differences between initiating a relationship on an internet dating site and other spaces (online and offline) included the type of self disclosed as well as the depth of breadth of information individuals self-disclosed about themselves before any one-on-one conversations took place.
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paper_title: Indicating Mate Preferences by Mixing Survey and Process-generated Data. The Case of Attitudes and Behaviour in Online Mate Search

paper_content:

Die Indikation partnerschaftlicher Praferenzen mithilfe der Mi- schung von Befragungs- und Prozessdaten. Das Beispiel von Einstellung und Verhalten bei der Online-Partnersuche«. Web-based process-generated data is produced by social agency of users and recorded by the respective provider without any originally scientific purpose. We support our idea of advantageous applications of process-generated data by outlining a research example that uses data generated by email contacting on an online dating website for the in- vestigation of mate preferences. This approach follows the paradigm of indi- cating or 'revealing' preferences by observing choosing acts. Advantages and disadvantages of this approach in comparison to the traditional 'stated prefer- ence'-paradigm of survey research are discussed. Both approaches suffer dif- ferent informational restrictions and induce different problems of valid infer- ence. In conclusion we offer an outlook towards research strategies of an integration of the two quantitative paradigms.
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paper_title: Who Contacts Whom? Educational Homophily in Online Mate Selection

paper_content:

Data from an online dating platform are used to study the importance of education for initiating and replying to online contacts. We analyse how these patterns are influenced by educational homophily and opportunity structures. Social exchange theory and mate search theory are used to explain online mate selection behaviour. Our results show that educational homophily is the dominant mechanism in online mate choice. Similarity in education significantly increases the rate of both sending and replying to initial contacts. After controlling for the opportunity structure on the platform, the preference for similar educated others is the most important factor, particularly among women. Our results also support the exchange theoretical idea that homophily increases with educational level. If dissimilarity contacting patterns are found, women are highly reluctant to contact partners with lower educational qualifications. Men, in contrast, do not have any problems to contact lower-qualified women. Studies of educational homogamy generally show that couples where women have a higher level of education are rare. Our study demonstrates that this is mainly the result of women's reluctance to contact lower qualified men.
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paper_title: If I ’ m Not Hot , Are You Hot or Not ? Physical-Attractiveness Evaluations and Dating Preferences as a Function of One ’ s Own Attractiveness

paper_content:

Prior research has established that people's own physical attractiveness affects their selection of romantic partners. This article provides further support for this effect and also examines a different, yet related, question: When less attractivepeopleaccept less attractive dates, do they persuade themselves that the people they choose to date are more physically attractive than others perceive them to be? Our analysis of data from the pop- ular Web site HOTorNOT.com suggests that this is not the case: Less attractive people do not delude themselves into thinking that their dates are more physically attractive than others perceive them to be. Furthermore, the results also show that males, compared with females, are less affected by their own attractiveness when choosing whom to date.
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paper_title: Romance and the Internet: The E-Mergence of Edating

paper_content:

This study explores the meaning and essence of a relatively new phenomenon-electronic (EDating) in regards to its relationships and effects on gender. In our phenomenology, we look at the Internet-based form of EDating via the experiences of college-aged singles in the U.S. First, we explore the emergence of the EDating Internet dating phenomenon with all preconceived experiences aside. We denote clusters of meanings from the words participants ascribe to the dating experience. Second, we examine the implications of Internet-based dating on the more traditional offline dating. Our article addresses these issues via a series of focus group interviews. The researchers interviewed college-aged singles in a sub-urban American city over the time span of twenty months. We assume human experience can be consciously expressed and explained through narrative description. We apply the Social Exchange Theory along with sociocultural, semiotic, and humanistic perspectives to understand and interpret emerging trends. We horizonalize statements, create units of meaning, compile themes, advance description, and integrate our data to an exhaustive analysis of Internet dating. We conclude that Internet dating does not replace existing rituals associated with dating. Nevertheless, the effects of technology are visible in modern dating rituals.
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paper_title: Dispositional factors predicting use of online dating sites and behaviors related to online dating

paper_content:

Although prior research has examined how individual difference factors are related to relationship initiation and formation over the Internet (e.g., online dating sites, social networking sites), little research has examined how dispositional factors are related to other aspects of online dating. The present research therefore sought to examine the relationship between several dispositional factors, such as Big-Five personality traits, self-esteem, rejection sensitivity, and attachment styles, and the use of online dating sites and online dating behaviors. Rejection sensitivity was the only dispositional variable predictive of use of online dating sites whereby those higher in rejection sensitivity are more likely to use online dating sites than those lower in rejection sensitivity. We also found that those higher in rejection sensitivity, those lower in conscientiousness, and men indicated being more likely to engage in potentially risky behaviors related to meeting an online dating partner face-to-face. Further research is needed to further explore the relationships between these dispositional factors and online dating behaviors.
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paper_title: The truth about lying in online dating profiles

paper_content:

Online dating is a popular new tool for initiating romantic relationships, although recent research and media reports suggest that it may also be fertile ground for deception. Unlike previous studies that rely solely on self-report data, the present study establishes ground truth for 80 online daters' height, weight and age, and compares ground truth data to the information provided in online dating profiles. The results suggest that deception is indeed frequently observed, but that the magnitude of the deceptions is usually small. As expected, deceptions differ by gender. Results are discussed in light of the Hyperpersonal model and the self-presentational tensions experienced by online dating participants.
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paper_title: Searching for Love in all the “Write” Places: Exploring Internet Personals Use by Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Age

paper_content:

ABSTRACT Few researchers of Internet sexual exploration have systematically compared variance of use across sexual orientations, with even fewer surveying bisexual respondents. In 2004, 15,246 individuals responded to an online survey of their use of Internet personals and adult websites. Gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals (GLBs) were more likely than heterosexuals to have exchanged correspondence, met others offline, and had sex with someone they met through personal ads. Whereas gay men and lesbians of all ages were most likely to have established a long-term relationship as a result of personals, heterosexuals over age 40 were more likely to have established a long-term relationship than younger heterosexuals. Further, compared to men, women were approximately two times as likely to have established a serious relationship as a result of personals. Qualitative findings suggest that the Internet functions not only as a means of screening for desired characteristics, but also as a shield against prejudice i...
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paper_title: First Comes Love, Then Comes Google: An Investigation of Uncertainty Reduction Strategies and Self-Disclosure in Online Dating:

paper_content:

This study investigates relationships between privacy concerns, uncertainty reduction behaviors, and self-disclosure among online dating participants, drawing on uncertainty reduction theory and the warranting principle. The authors propose a conceptual model integrating privacy concerns, self-efficacy, and Internet experience with uncertainty reduction strategies and amount of self-disclosure and then test this model on a nationwide sample of online dating participants ( N = 562). The study findings confirm that the frequency of use of uncertainty reduction strategies is predicted by three sets of online dating concerns—personal security, misrepresentation, and recognition—as well as self-efficacy in online dating. Furthermore, the frequency of uncertainty reduction strategies mediates the relationship between these variables and amount of self-disclosure with potential online dating partners. The authors explore the theoretical implications of these findings for our understanding of uncertainty reductio...
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paper_title: Contradictory deceptive behavior in online dating

paper_content:

Deceptive behavior is common in online dating because personal profiles can be easily manipulated. This study conducts two experiments to examine contradictory deceptive behavior in online dating. The results of Experiment 1 showed that users have lower perceptions of authenticity evaluations of daters’ self-provided photographs with strong physical attractiveness than for those with low physical attractiveness, and the authenticity perceptions of daters’ self-provided photographs have a positive relationship with the authenticity evaluation of online daters’ text-based self-presentations. Although users are suspicious of the authenticity of beautiful or handsome daters’ photographs, the results of Experiment 2 showed that people still employ higher levels of deception in self-presentations toward daters with highly attractive photographs to increase their possibilities of securing a date with those daters. The results also show that women employ higher levels of deception in self-presentation than men in online dating environments.
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paper_title: Overcoming relationship-initiation barriers: The impact of a computer-dating system on sex role, shyness, and appearance inhibitions

paper_content:

A survey of the users of an online computer-mediated matchmaking service showed that their communication patterns and objectives varied by their sex, shyness level, and appearance. Men generally contacted women more than vice versa, but a substantial minority of the women contacted a great number of men, suggesting that the safety and anonymity the system offered helped them break free from traditional sex role norms. More than half of the women reported starting a romantic or sexual relationship through the system, as compared to less than a third of the men, reflecting, in part, that men outnumber women on the system nearly three to one. Users who scored higher on a shyness scale were much more likely than less shy users to say they were using the system to find romance or sex, suggesting shier users employ the system as a way to overcome their inhibitions. Women who rated their own appearance as average were less likely to be contacted by men than those who rated their appearance as above average, but there was no significant difference between appearance groups concerning the likelihood of starting a romantic or sexual relationship. Intrinsic aspects of this computer-mediated matchmaking system helped some users overcome relationship-initiation barriers rooted in sex role, shyness, and appearance inhibitions.
---
paper_title: Matching and sorting in online dating

paper_content:

Using data on user attributes and interactions from an online dating site, we estimate mate preferences, and use the Gale-Shapley algorithm to predict sta ble matches. The predicted matches are similar to the actual matches achieved by the dating site, and the actual matches are approximately efficient. Outof-sample predictions of offline matches, i.e., marriages, exhibit assortative mating patterns similar to those observed in actual marriages. Thus, mate pref erences, without resort to search frictions, can generate sorting in marriages. However, we underpredict some of the correlation patterns; search frictions may play a role in explaining the discrepancy. (
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paper_title: Exploring gender differences in member profiles of an online dating site across 35 countries

paper_content:

Online communities such as forums, general purpose social networking and dating sites, have rapidly become one of the important data sources for analysis of human behavior fostering research in different scientific domains such as computer science, psychology, anthropology, and social science. The key component of most of the online communities and Social Networking Sites (SNS) in particular, is the user profile, which plays a role of a self-advertisement in the aggregated form. While some scientists investigate privacy implications of information disclosure, others test or generate social and behavioral hypotheses based on the information provided by users in their profiles or by interviewing members of these SNS. In this paper, we apply a number of analytical procedures on a large-scale SNS dataset of 10 million public profiles with more than 40 different attributes from one of the largest dating sites in the Russian segment of the Internet to explore similarities and differences in patterns of self-disclosure. Particularly, we build gender classification models for the residents of the 35 most active countries, and investigate differences between genders within and across countries. The results show that while Russian language and culture are unifying factors for people's interaction on the dating site, the patterns of self-disclosure are different across countries. Some geographically close countries exhibit higher similarity between patterns of self-disclosure which was also confirmed by studies on cross-cultural differences and personality traits. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to conduct a large-scale analysis of SNS profiles, emphasize gender differences on a country level, investigate patterns of self-disclosure and to provide exact rules that characterize genders within and across countries.
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paper_title: Homophily in online dating: when do you like someone like yourself?

paper_content:

Psychologists have found that actual and perceived similarity between potential romantic partners in demographics, attitudes, values, and attractiveness correlate positively with attraction and, later, relationship satisfaction. Online dating systems provide a new way for users to identify and communicate with potential partners, but the information they provide differs dramatically from what a person might glean from face-to-face interaction. An analysis of dyadic interactions of approximately 65,000 heterosexual users of an online dating system in the U.S. showed that, despite these differences, users of the system sought people like them much more often than chance would predict, just as in the offline world. The users' preferences were most strongly same-seeking for attributes related to the life course, like marital history and whether one wants children, but they also demonstrated significant homophily in self-reported physical build, physical attractiveness, and smoking habits.
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paper_title: Putting Your Best Face Forward: The Accuracy of Online Dating Photographs

paper_content:

This study examines the accuracy of 54 online dating photographs posted by heterosexual daters. We report data on (a1) online daters' self-reported accuracy, (b) independent judges' perceptions of accuracy, and (c) inconsistencies in the profile photograph identified by trained coders. While online daters rated their photos as relatively accurate, independent judges rated approximately 1/3 of the photographs as not accurate. Female photographs were judged as less accurate than male photographs, and were more likely to be older, to be retouched or taken by a professional photographer, and to contain inconsistencies, including changes in hair style and skin quality. The findings are discussed in terms of the tensions experienced by online daters to (a) enhance their physical attractiveness and (b) present a photograph that would not be judged deceptive in subsequent face-to-face meetings. The paper extends the theoretical concept of selective self-presentation to online photographs, and discusses issues of self-deception and social desirability bias.
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paper_title: Mate selection in cyberspace: The intersection of race, gender, and education

paper_content:

In this article, the authors examine how race, gender, and education jointly shape interaction among heterosexual Internet daters. They find that racial homophily dominates mate-searching behavior for both men and women. A racial hierarchy emerges in the reciprocating process. Women respond only to men of similar or more dominant racial status, while nonblack men respond to all but black women. Significantly, the authors find that education does not mediate the observed racial preferences among white men and white women. White men and white women with a college degree are more likely to contact and to respond to white daters without a college degree than they are to black daters with a college degree.
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paper_title: Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues

paper_content:

Marital discord is costly to children, families, and communities. The advent of the Internet, social networking, and on-line dating has affected how people meet future spouses, but little is known about the prevalence or outcomes of these marriages or the demographics of those involved. We addressed these questions in a nationally representative sample of 19,131 respondents who married between 2005 and 2012. Results indicate that more than one-third of marriages in America now begin on-line. In addition, marriages that began on-line, when compared with those that began through traditional off-line venues, were slightly less likely to result in a marital break-up (separation or divorce) and were associated with slightly higher marital satisfaction among those respondents who remained married. Demographic differences were identified between respondents who met their spouse through on-line vs. traditional off-line venues, but the findings for marital break-up and marital satisfaction remained significant after statistically controlling for these differences. These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself.
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paper_title: An Examination of Language Use in Online Dating Profiles

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This paper contributes to the study of self-presentation in online dating systems by performing a factor analysis on the text portions of online profiles. Findings include a similarity in the overall factor structures between male and female profiles, including use of tentative words by men. Contrasts between sexes were also found in a cluster analysis of the profiles using their factor scores. Finally, we also found similarities in frequent words used by the gender groups.
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paper_title: Predicting User Replying Behavior on a Large Online Dating Site

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Online dating sites have become popular platforms for people to look for potential romantic partners. Many online dating sites provide recommendations on compatible partners based on their proprietary matching algorithms. It is important that not only the recommended dates match the user’s preference or criteria, but also the recommended users are interested in the user and likely to reciprocate when contacted. The goal of this paper is to predict whether an initial contact message from a user will be replied to by the receiver. The study is based on a large scale real-world dataset obtained from a major dating site in China with more than sixty million registered users. We formulate our reply prediction as a link prediction problem of social networks and approach it using a machine learning framework. The availability of a large amount of user profile information and the bipartite nature of the dating network present unique opportunities and challenges to the reply prediction problem. We extract user-based features from user profiles and graph-based features from the bipartite dating network, apply them in a variety of classification algorithms, and compare the utility of the features and performance of the classifiers. Our results show that the user-based and graph-based features result in similar performance, and can be used to effectively predict the reciprocal links. Only a small performance gain is achieved when both feature sets are used. Among the five classifiers we considered, random forests method outperforms the other four algorithms (naive Bayes, logistic regression, KNN, and SVM). Our methods and results can provide valuable guidelines to the design and performance of recommendation engine for online dating sites.
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paper_title: The Role of Linguistic Properties in Online Dating Communication - A Large-scale Study of Contact Initiation Messages

paper_content:

For people who look for a partner, online dating largely increases the pool of potential mates. At the same time, users of online dating platforms have to cope with a large number of approaches and, therefore, need to choose selectively who they decide to engage in a conversation with. Especially, since the costs of rejection are low on online dating platforms, it is a common strategy to spam others with superficial approaches. With this in mind, and in the absence of nonverbal cues, targets base their decision of whether or not to respond to a message on (a) their impression of the sender’s pictures, and (b) cues which they extract from the content of the message. The purpose of this study is to hypothesize on which linguistic properties of a message in computer-mediated communication may signal various qualities of its sender, to predict how those properties determine a target’s decision of whether to respond or to ignore an initial message. Employing the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text analysis, relevant variables are operationalized from a corpus of 167,276 initial messages of an online dating platform. Regression analysis is performed in order to test the hypotheses. Results are discussed with respect to design implications for online dating platforms.
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paper_title: The Language of Love: Sex, Sexual Orientation, and Language Use in Online Personal Advertisements

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Stereotypes and biological theories suggest that psychological gender differences found in predominantly heterosexual samples are smaller or reversed among gay men and lesbians. Computerized text analysis that compares people’s language style on a wide range of dimensions from pronoun use to body references offers a multivariate personality marker to test such assumptions. Analysis of over 1,500 internet personal advertisements placed by heterosexual men, heterosexual women, gay men, and lesbians found little evidence that orientation alters the impact of gender on linguistic behaviors. Previously reported gender differences were replicated in the gay as well as the heterosexual advertisements studied. Main effects of sexual orientation indicated that gay people of both sexes apparently felt less need to differentiate themselves from potential mates than did heterosexual people. Virtually no crossover sexual orientation by sex interactions emerged indicating that several popular models of sexual orientation are not supported on a linguistic level.
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paper_title: Who's Right and Who Writes: People, Profiles, Contacts, and Replies in Online Dating

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In this analysis of profiles and messaging behavior on a major online dating service, we find that, consistent with predictions of evolutionary psychology, women as compared to men state more restrictive preferences for their ideal date. Furthermore, women contact and reply to others more selectively than men. Additionally, we identify connections among messaging behavior, textual self-descriptions in dating profiles, and relationship-relevant traits such as neuroticism.
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paper_title: Less Is More : The Lure of Ambiguity , or Why Familiarity Breeds Contempt

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The present research shows that although people believe that learning more about others leads to greater liking, more information about others leads, on average, to less liking. Thus, ambiguity--lacking information about another--leads to liking, whereas familiarity--acquiring more information--can breed contempt. This "less is more" effect is due to the cascading nature of dissimilarity: Once evidence of dissimilarity is encountered, subsequent information is more likely to be interpreted as further evidence of dissimilarity, leading to decreased liking. The authors document the negative relationship between knowledge and liking in laboratory studies and with pre- and postdate data from online daters, while showing the mediating role of dissimilarity.
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paper_title: Animal Mating Systems: A Synthesis Based on Selection Theory

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Following principles used by A. J. Bateman, we identify the relationship between fecundity and mating success as the central feature in the operation of mating systems. Using selection theory from the field of quantitative genetics, we define the sexual selection gradient as the average slope of the relationship between fecundity and mating success and show how it can be estimated from data. We argue that sexual selection gradients are the key to understanding how the intensity of sexual selection is affected by mate provisioning, parental investment, and sex ratio.
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paper_title: Internet dating: a British survey

paper_content:

Purpose – An online survey was carried out with the purpose of finding out the extent to which internet users subscribe to online dating services. The paper aims to assess users' experiences of such services and their eventual outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained through a self‐completion online questionnaire survey posted on the website of a leading internet research agency, utilising its online panel of c. 30,000 UK respondents.Findings – More than 3,800 online panellists responded of whom 29 per cent said they had used an online dating site. Most of these respondents (90 per cent) had spent up to £200 on internet dating in the past two years, with 70 per cent of users achieving at least one date, 43 per cent enjoying at least one sexual relationship, and 9 per cent finding a marriage partner.Research limitations/implications – Despite the limitations over sample control of self‐completion surveying, a large online sample was achieved that indicated the growing importance of the int...
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paper_title: One-Way Mirrors and Weak-Signaling in Online Dating: A Randomized Field Experiment

paper_content:

The growing popularity of online dating sites is altering one of the most fundamental human activities of finding a date or a marriage partner. Online dating platforms offer new capabilities, such as intensive search, big-data based mate recommendations and varying levels of anonymity, whose parallels do not exist in the physical world. In this study we examine the impact of anonymity feature on matching outcomes. Based on a large scale randomized experiment in partnership with one of the largest online dating companies, we demonstrate causally that anonymity indeed lets users browse more freely, but at the same time impacts the existing social dating norms (what we call a weak signaling mechanism) and thus produces negative impact on matches. Our results show that this weak signaling is especially helpful for women, helping them overcome social frictions coming from established social norms that discourage them from making the first move in dating. © (2013) by the AIS/ICIS Administrative Office. All rights reserved.
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paper_title: Dating deception: Gender, online dating, and exaggerated self-presentation

paper_content:

This study examined how differences in expectations about meeting impacted the degree of deceptive self-presentation individuals displayed within the context of dating. Participants filled out personality measures in one of four anticipated meeting conditions: face-to-face, email, no meeting, and a control condition with no pretense of dating. Results indicated that, compared to baseline measures, male participants increased the amount they self-presented when anticipating a future interaction with a prospective date. Specifically, male participants emphasized their positive characteristics more if the potential date was less salient (e.g., email meeting) compared to a more salient condition (e.g., face-to-face meeting) or the control conditions. Implications for self-presentation theory, online social interaction, and online dating research will be discussed.
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paper_title: Revealing the 'real' me, searching for the 'actual' you: Presentations of self on an internet dating site

paper_content:

This paper considers the presentation of self on an internet dating site. Thirty men and thirty women were interviewed about their online dating experiences. They were asked about how they constructed their profiles and how they viewed other individuals’ profiles. What types of presentations of self led to more successful offline romantic relationships were also investigated. Additionally, gender differences were examined. In line with previous research on presentation of self online, individuals were quite strategic in their online presentations. However, important differences between initiating a relationship on an internet dating site and other spaces (online and offline) included the type of self disclosed as well as the depth of breadth of information individuals self-disclosed about themselves before any one-on-one conversations took place.
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paper_title: Partner Preferences Across the Life Span: Online Dating by Older Adults

paper_content:

Stereotypes of older adults as withdrawn or asexual fail to recognize that romantic relationships in later life are increasingly common. The authors analyzed 600 Internet personal ads from 4 age groups: 20-34, 40-54, 60-74, and 75+ years. Predictions from evolutionary theory held true in later life, when reproduction is no longer a concern. Across the life span, men sought physical attractiveness and offered status-related information more than women; women were more selective than men and sought status more than men. With age, men desired women increasingly younger than themselves, whereas women desired older men until ages 75 and over, when they sought men younger than themselves.
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paper_title: Self-Presentation in Online Personals: The Role of Anticipated Future Interaction, Self-Disclosure, and Perceived Success in Internet Dating

paper_content:

This study investigates self-disclosure in the novel context of online dating relationships. Using a national random sample of Match.com members (N = 349), the authors tested a model of relational goals, self-disclosure, and perceived success in online dating. The authors’ findings provide support for social penetration theory and the social information processing and hyperpersonal perspectives as well as highlight the positive effect of anticipated future face-to-face interaction on online self-disclosure. The authors find that perceived online dating success is predicted by four dimensions of self-disclosure (honesty, amount, intent, and valence), although honesty has a negative effect. Furthermore, online dating experience is a strong predictor of perceived success in online dating. Additionally, the authors identify predictors of strategic success versus self-presentation success. This research extends existing theory on computer-mediated communication, self-disclosure, and relational success to the i...
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paper_title: Strategic misrepresentation in online dating: The effects of gender, self-monitoring, and personality traits:

paper_content:

This study examines factors (including gender, self-monitoring, the big five personality traits, and demographic characteristics) that influence online dating service users’ strategic misrepresentation (i.e., the conscious and intentional misrepresentation of personal characteristics). Using data from a survey of online dating service users (N = 5,020), seven categories of misrepresentation — personal assets, relationship goals, personal interests, personal attributes, past relationships, weight, and age — were examined. The study found that men are more likely to misrepresent personal assets, relationship goals, personal interests, and personal attributes, whereas women are more likely to misrepresent weight. The study further discovered that self-monitoring (specifically other-directedness) was the strongest and most consistent predictor of misrepresentation in online dating. Agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness also showed consistent relationships with misrepresentation.
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paper_title: Attractiveness and sexual behavior: Does attractiveness enhance mating success

paper_content:

Abstract If attractiveness is an important cue for mate choice, as proposed by evolutionary psychologists, then attractive individuals should have greater mating success than their peers. We tested this hypothesis in a large sample of adults. Facial attractiveness correlated with the number of short-term, but not long-term, sexual partners, for males, and with the number of long-term, but not short-term, sexual partners and age of first sex, for females. Body attractiveness also correlated significantly with the number of short-term, but not long-term, sexual partners, for males, and attractive males became sexually active earlier than their peers. Body attractiveness did not correlate with any sexual behavior variable for females. To determine which aspects of attractiveness were important, we examined associations between sexual behaviors and three components of attractiveness: sexual dimorphism, averageness, and symmetry. Sexual dimorphism showed the clearest associations with sexual behaviors. Masculine males (bodies, similar trend for faces) had more short-term sexual partners, and feminine females (faces) had more long-term sexual partners than their peers. Feminine females (faces) also became sexually active earlier than their peers. Average males (faces and bodies) had more short-term sexual partners and more extra-pair copulations (EPC) than their peers. Symmetric women (faces) became sexually active earlier than their peers. Given that male reproductive success depends more on short-term mating opportunities than does female reproductive success, these findings suggest that individuals of high phenotypic quality have higher mating success than their lower quality counterparts.
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paper_title: Sex differences in intra-sex variations in human mating tactics: An evolutionary approach

paper_content:

Abstract We assessed sex differences in the effects of physical attractiveness and earning potential on mate selection, and sex differences in preferences and motivations with regard to short-term and long-term mating. We also investigated the effect of a variable likely to produce intra-sex variations in the selection of mating tactics, self-perceived mating success. Forty-eight university students were presented with pictures and short descriptions of persons of the opposite sex varying in physical attractiveness and earning potential. Dating interest was influenced, for both sexes, by stimulus-person's physical attractiveness and earning potential, but these two characteristics interacted only for female raters. Male and female subjects showed discrepant preferences and motivations with regard to short-term and long-term mating. In addition, self-perceived mating success was related to mating tactics in males only: Males who perceived themselves as more successful, compared to males who perceived themselves as less successful, tended to prefer and to more often select short-term mating. This effect was maximized when the stimulus person was very attractive and of high earning potential. These results confirm sex differences in mating preferences, strongly suggest a proximal factor of tactic selection, and suggest that males' mating strategies may be more variable than females'.
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Title: Gender Differences in Online Dating: What Do We Know So Far? A Systematic Literature Review

Section 1: Introduction
Description 1: Introduce the significance and context of online dating and outline the aim and importance of the study.

Section 2: Theoretical Foundations
Description 2: Discuss the theoretical background, including social role, self-construal, and evolutionary theories as they pertain to gender differences in online dating.

Section 3: Methodology
Description 3: Detail the methods used in selecting and analyzing the literature, including criteria for inclusion and the process of data collection.

Section 4: Daters' Characteristics
Description 4: Summarize the user characteristics collected, focusing on differences between male and female users.

Section 5: Motivation
Description 5: Explore the initial motives for engaging in online dating for males and females and how these motives align with mating theory.

Section 6: Preferences
Description 6: Analyze the preferences of men and women in selecting potential partners on online dating platforms.

Section 7: Disclosure
Description 7: Examine the patterns of self-disclosure by male and female daters on online dating platforms.

Section 8: Misrepresentation
Description 8: Discuss the tendencies of misrepresentation among male and female users and the types of information often falsified.

Section 9: Interaction
Description 9: Investigate the nature of interactions between male and female users on online dating platforms, including initiation and response patterns.

Section 10: Outcome
Description 10: Summarize the outcomes of online dating interactions, focusing on gender differences in meeting offline and relationship success.

Section 11: Concluding Remarks
Description 11: Provide a summary of key findings and their implications for theory and practice, and suggest avenues for future research.