51,289 research outputs found
Computational Courtship: Understanding the Evolution of Online Dating through Large-scale Data Analysis
Have we become more tolerant of dating people of different social backgrounds
compared to ten years ago? Has the rise of online dating exacerbated or
alleviated gender inequalities in modern courtship? Are the most attractive
people on these platforms necessarily the most successful? In this work, we
examine the mate preferences and communication patterns of male and female
users of the online dating site eHarmony over the past decade to identify how
attitudes and behaviors have changed over this time period. While other studies
have investigated disparities in user behavior between male and female users,
this study is unique in its longitudinal approach. Specifically, we analyze how
men and women differ in their preferences for certain traits in potential
partners and how those preferences have changed over time. The second line of
inquiry investigates to what extent physical attractiveness determines the rate
of messages a user receives, and how this relationship varies between men and
women. Thirdly, we explore whether online dating practices between males and
females have become more equal over time or if biases and inequalities have
remained constant (or increased). Fourthly, we study the behavioural traits in
sending and replying to messages based on one's own experience of receiving
messages and being replied to. Finally, we found that similarity between
profiles is not a predictor for success except for the number of children and
smoking habits. This work could have broader implications for shifting gender
norms and social attitudes, reflected in online courtship rituals. Apart from
the data-based research, we connect the results to existing theories that
concern the role of ICTs in societal change. As searching for love online
becomes increasingly common across generations and geographies, these findings
may shed light on how people can build relationships through the Internet.Comment: Preprint, under revie
Are men intimidated by highly educated women? Undercover on Tinder
In this study, we examine the impact of an individual's education level on her/his mating success on the mobile dating app Tinder. To do so, we conducted a field experiment on Tinder in which we collected data on 3,600 profile evaluations. In line with previous research on mating preferences from multiple fields, our results indicate a heterogeneous effect of education level by gender: while women strongly prefer a highly educated potential partner, this hypothesis is rejected for men. In contrast with recent influential studies from the field of economics, we do not find any evidence that men would have an aversion to a highly educated potential partner. Additionally, in contrast with most previous research - again from multiple fields we do not find any evidence for preferences for educational assortative mating, i.e. preferring a partner with a similar education level
Differences in Romanian Men\u27s Online Personals by Sexualities
As Internet usage increases, its ability to provide almost instant connections and to pre-screen potential partners has made it a popular source for meeting people. To contribute to current literature, we examine differences in content between 187 men seeking men and 193 men seeking women in a sample of Romanian (Bucharest) personals in 2007. Results show that men seeking women provide more information about themselves than men seeking men. While the results also show that some Romanian men are more open about expressing their sexualities than others, there are still many obstacles affecting how men choose to share and express their sexualities in Romania
Racial Prioritization in Black-White Relationships
The utilization of race as a proxy for evaluating different characteristics of others contains risk because it results in stereotyping and potential alienation of individuals from negatively judged groups. This concept motivated me to uncover the extent to which race affects intimate relationships amongst the historically opposed groups of blacks and whites in the United States. I am studying the historic racially-driven marginalization of blacks and the resulting relationship to recent dating and marriage patterns between black-white interracial pairs. I want to find out why the socioeconomic advantage held by whites is transmutated into dating culture, in order to understand the continued prioritization of race as a factor in forming romantic relationships. I engaged scholarly articles with analyses on the foundations of interracial relationships between black and white people and studies exploring online dating site behavior and the racial preferences of members. Main contributors to interracial marriages include higher educational achievement and cultural similarity. Factors that decrease black-stereotypical congruence tend to increase the chances of black individuals having relationships with white individuals. Race prioritization in relationships acts as a preliminary screening of resources deemed important to the longevity of a marriage and can therefore result in the discrimination of stereotypically disadvantaged blacks. I aim to emphasize the importance of accepting diversity and embracing individual characteristics, instead of the prejudices and stigmas against individuals simply due to appearance. I suggest that future research utilize the evidence provided here to speculate methods to improve implicit biases and attitudes toward interracial interactions
Why Yellow Fever Isn't Flattering: A Case Against Racial Fetishes
Most discussions of racial fetish center on the question of whether it is caused by negative racial stereotypes. In this paper I adopt a different strategy, one that begins with the experiences of those targeted by racial fetish rather than those who possess it; that is, I shift focus away from the origins of racial fetishes to their effects as a social phenomenon in a racially stratified world. I examine the case of preferences for Asian women, also known as ‘yellow fever’, to argue against the claim that racial fetishes are unobjectionable if they are merely based on personal or aesthetic preference rather than racial stereotypes. I contend that even if this were so, yellow fever would still be morally objectionable because of the disproportionate psychological burdens it places on Asian and Asian-American women, along with the role it plays in a pernicious system of racial social meanings
Reciprocal Recommendation System for Online Dating
Online dating sites have become popular platforms for people to look for
potential romantic partners. Different from traditional user-item
recommendations where the goal is to match items (e.g., books, videos, etc)
with a user's interests, a recommendation system for online dating aims to
match people who are mutually interested in and likely to communicate with each
other. We introduce similarity measures that capture the unique features and
characteristics of the online dating network, for example, the interest
similarity between two users if they send messages to same users, and
attractiveness similarity if they receive messages from same users. A
reciprocal score that measures the compatibility between a user and each
potential dating candidate is computed and the recommendation list is generated
to include users with top scores. The performance of our proposed
recommendation system is evaluated on a real-world dataset from a major online
dating site in China. The results show that our recommendation algorithms
significantly outperform previously proposed approaches, and the collaborative
filtering-based algorithms achieve much better performance than content-based
algorithms in both precision and recall. Our results also reveal interesting
behavioral difference between male and female users when it comes to looking
for potential dates. In particular, males tend to be focused on their own
interest and oblivious towards their attractiveness to potential dates, while
females are more conscientious to their own attractiveness to the other side of
the line
LGBT Equality and Sexual Racism
Bigots such as the trial judge in Loving have long invoked religion to justify discrimination. We agree with other scholars that neither religion nor artistic freedom justifies letting businesses discriminate. However, we also want to make manifest the tension between the public posture of LGBT-rights litigants and the practices of some LGBT people who discriminate based on race in selecting partners. We argue that some white people’s aversion to dating and forming relationships with people of color is a form of racism, and this sexual racism is inconsistent with the spirit of Loving. Part I provides a review of empirical literature on the prevalence of racial preferences in intimate relationships and shows that racial preferences are particularly pronounced among gay men. Part II supplements this overview with a qualitative exploration of how race informed the intimate experiences of people who sat for interviews as part of our ongoing study, LGBT Relationships and Well-Being. We also offer a theory that may partially explain sexual racism in the LGBT community. Specifically, exposure to mainstream gay culture may teach sexual minority men that race and desire are closely intertwined. In Part III, we propose ideas for further research, including a study that would test our theory
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