Things change with age: Educational assortment in online dating

Whyte, Stephen; Torgler, Benno

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2016.12.031

Cited by 29 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The data set was generated for active members (those accessing the account at least once during the sample period) of the Australian dating website RSVP between January and April 2016. This data set was also the basis for research reported in two earlier articles (Whyte & Torgler 2017a; Whyte & Torgler 2017b). All analyses reported in the current work are new.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We analyzed whether women are more likely than men to express their wants explicitly or show actual preferences for mate characteristics. Over the past two decades, behavioral scientists have begun to leverage the data collected by commercial Internet dating websites and organizations (Fiore, Taylor, Zhong, Mendelsohn, & Cheshire, 2010; Lee, Loewenstein, Ariely, Hong, & Young, 2008; Whyte & Torgler, 2017a, 2017b), which include large amounts of information about personal demographics and mate preferences and their actual mating behavior. Whereas previous research on online dating has demonstrated similar or higher preferences in women for education level in a mate (see, e.g., Hitsch, Hortaçsu, & Ariely, 2010a, 2010b; Skopek, Schulz, & Blossfeld, 2010), psychology research into online mate-choice behavior as yet provides no large-scale evidence of changes in women’s selectiveness at different life and fertility stages.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Do Men and Women Know What They Want? Sex Differences in Online Daters’ Educational Preferences

2018

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Using a unique cross-sectional data set of dating website members' educational preferences for potential mates ( N = 41,936), we showed that women were more likely than men to stipulate educational preferences at all ages. When members indifferent to educational level were excluded, however, the specificity of men's and women's preferences did differ for different age groups. That is, whereas women expressed more refined educational preferences during their years of maximum fertility, their demand specificity decreased with age. Men's specificity, in contrast, remained stable until the 40s, when it was greater than that of postreproductive women, and then was higher during their peak years of career-earnings potential. Further, when individuals' level of education was controlled for, women (compared with men) were more likely to state a higher minimum preference for educational level in a potential mate.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Do Men and Women Know What They Want? Sex Differences in Online Daters’ Educational Preferences

2018

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“…With the Internet that has created a new space for people to be able to find their partner. This is based on decision making that is sequentially facilitated by the Internet, the individual can determine the prospective partner that he wants and allows greater opportunity to find the partner according to individual desires (Whyte & Torgler, 2017) The introduction done aims to achieve a similar goal in establishing an online-based romantic relationship. Some subjects explained that with the presence of the internet and social media, the subject was finally able to get a partner.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Together all the bad things will disappear, I find my partner: Phenomenology study of online dating

Afdilla

2021

ajcd

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The use of online dating applications has become a phenomenal social norm that is popular among the community of active social media users. Online dating activities are supported by the advancement of technology which resulted in an abundance of affordable smartphones, hence everybody can easily find and meet locals as well as foreigners, which eventually might establish a more serious relationship. This research aims to explore how an individual who is online dating addresses all the constraints and barriers the users experience and the motivation underlying the user in online dating to establish a relationship with the partner, which is certainly different from offline (classic) relationships. The research method used is a qualitative approach to the type of descriptive phenomenology. The number of subjects in this study was 8 people (3 men and 5 women), who had an online dating relationship with someone from abroad. The results showed that some couples chose to learn to understand the culture and their limitations in establishing the relationship. Besides, some subjects chose to learn the language of their partner and spending more time with their partner who had a regional time difference. The subjects had almost the same motivation in deciding to go for online dating. The fundamental thing that becomes a driver of an online dating relationship comes from the individual's owns’ desire to fulfill the needs of establishing a relationship with others to gain much-needed attention, love, care, and compassion.

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“…Such wage gaps are common and consistent across developed economies [ 32 ], accentuating male access to earnings and resources, and forcing women who seek higher education or equivalent earnings in their late 20s through their 30s to postpone or delay pregnancy [ 27 ]. As mate choice research across a myriad of disciplines repeatedly demonstrates, this combination of disproportionate physiological investment and constraints in accessing resources places evolutionary selection pressure on females to secure or favor mates who can compensate for this cost constraint [ 1 , 11 , 14 , 33 ]. With such disproportionate opportunity costs for both labor market and reproductive participation, sex differentiated preferences for accrued resources or proxies for access should also be visible in any mating market.…”

Section: Aesthetics Resources and Personality In Mate Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in sexual attraction for aesthetics, resources and personality across age

et al. 2021

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Because sexual attraction is a key driver of human mate choice and reproduction, we descriptively assess relative sex differences in the level of attraction individuals expect in the aesthetic, resource, and personality characteristics of potential mates. As a novelty we explore how male and female sexual attractiveness preference changes across age, using a dataset comprising online survey data for over 7,000 respondents across a broad age distribution of individuals between 18 and 65 years. In general, we find that both males and females show similar distribution patterns in their preference responses, with statistically significant sex differences within most of the traits. On average, females rate age, education, intelligence, income, trust, and emotional connection around 9 to 14 points higher than males on our 0–100 scale range. Our relative importance analysis shows greater male priority for attractiveness and physical build, compared to females, relative to all other traits. Using multiple regression analysis, we find a consistent statistical sex difference (males relative to females) that decreases linearly with age for aesthetics, while the opposite is true for resources and personality, with females exhibiting a stronger relative preference, particularly in the younger aged cohort. Exploring non-linearity in sex difference with contour plots for intelligence and attractiveness across age (mediated by age) indicates that sex differences in attractiveness preferences are driven by the male cohort (particularly age 30 to 40) for those who care about the importance of age, while intelligence is driven by females caring relatively more about intelligence for those who see age as very important (age cohort 40 to 55). Overall, many of our results indicate distinct variations within sex at key life stages, which is consistent with theories of selection pressure. Moreover, results also align with theories of parental investment, the gender similarities hypothesis, and mutual mate choice–which speaks to the fact that the broader discipline of evolutionary mate choice research in humans still contains considerable scope for further inquiry towards a unified theory, particularly when exploring sex-difference across age.

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Things change with age: Educational assortment in online dating

Cited by 29 publications

References 29 publications

Do Men and Women Know What They Want? Sex Differences in Online Daters’ Educational Preferences

Do Men and Women Know What They Want? Sex Differences in Online Daters’ Educational Preferences

Together all the bad things will disappear, I find my partner: Phenomenology study of online dating

Sex differences in sexual attraction for aesthetics, resources and personality across age

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