How gender role stereotypes affect attraction in an online dating scenario

Abstract

Today, it is not uncommon to meet someone and begin a romantic relationship on the internet. Meeting on a dating website differs from meeting in person because a dating profile is created first that allows others to review potential romantic partners. Few studies have examined romantic attraction within an online dating context, and even fewer have examined how gender roles may influence attraction. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 (N = 447, 49.4% female) examined the effects of gender role congruence and physical attractiveness on romantic interest.Study 2 (N = 234, 100% female) examined if the effects of gender roles and physical attractiveness extended to changes in women's self-presentation. In both studies participants viewed online dating profiles that varied in their physical attractiveness and adherence to gender role norms. Study 1 results indicated that both men and women prefer attractive and gender role incongruent dating partners over average looking and gender role congruent. For Study 2, profile gender role congruence or incongruence did not appear to have an effect on women's selfpresentation; however, there was a significant increase in self-reports of masculine traits over the sessions disregarding profile gender role congruence. This may suggest that being in a dating situation could increase women's self-presentation of masculine traits. The results of these studies go against current major theories and demonstrate a need for these theories to be altered to accommodate for the way gender roles truly play a role in our society today.iii

A autoapresentação dos portugueses na plataforma de online dating Tinder

“…A componente visual, contrariamente à componente escrita, ajuda mais rapidamente na criação de uma impressão e ao contrário dos textos contribui significativamente para atrair potenciais parceiros (De Vries, 2007). Estudos anteriores, como (Cash el al.., 2004;Humphreys, 2006;Siibak, 2009;De Vries, 2010;Toma & Hancok, 2012, Casimiro, 2015Chappetta, 2016, Miguel 2016) demonstraram não apenas importância das fotografias, assim como deste tipo de autoapresentação, e encontraram diferenças entre géneros e idades. Figura 1: Percentagem de fotos identificáveis versus não identificáveis -n = 701…”

Ways of Masculinity in Online Dating Profiles: the Cases of Meetic.es and AdoptaUnTio.es

“…Thus, although some studies have highlighted the role of photos and physical characteristics (Morgan et al, 2010;Bak, 2010;Chappetta & Barth, 2016), other factors are also shown to be relevant such as personality (Morgan et al, 2010) ) ), an authentic or warm nature that inspires confidence and appears extroverted in the case of men, or appearing feminine with high self-esteem and not narcissistic in the case of women (Fiore et al, 2008). The significant differences between the results obtained in different researches could be related to the groups selected to be studied and the specific online dating sites used as sources of information.…”

Analyzing the Costs of Nontraditional Choices: Role Congruity Theory and College Student's Perception of Attractiveness

“…A more recent study of college students found that the students actually preferred gender role incongruent potential romantic partners rather than gender role congruent ones (Chappetta and Barth, 2016). In this study, mock online dating profiles were constructed that included pictures of potential dates, descriptions of their hobbies, interests, what they were looking for in a romantic partner and other personality traits.…”

“…There are also conflicting results as to whether or not gender role congruence makes a person more or less attractive than gender role incongruence in previous studies based on whether the researchers are looking at gender role congruity in respect to short or long term relationships (Thomae and Houston, 2015;Chappetta and Barth, 2016). In order to address this issue, levels of attraction towards gender role congruent and incongruent individuals in the context of both short and long term relationships will be examined.…”

“…The present study connects theories in a new and needed way in order to look at the effect of role congruity between gender, occupational status and personality traits and the effect that this has on the evaluation of potential romantic partner attractiveness. Research has shown that attraction can be affected by whether a potential romantic partner is gender role congruent or incongruent with some contradicting results (Chappetta and Barth, 2016;Thomae andHouston, 2015, Zillman et al, 1986). Previous research focuses either on a person's occupational status or on their personality traits in order to examine the effect of gender incongruent attributes on people's assessment of their attractiveness which leads some to conclude that gender role incongruence makes a person less attractive (Thomae and Houston, 2015;Schaffer and Johnson, 1980;Travaglia et al, 2009) and others to conclude that it makes a person more attractive (Chappetta and Barth, 2016).…”