Online dating offers more opportunities to find a partner than any previous arrangement, and more people are single than before. One way to square that is a : continued access to effectively unlimited options makes a person more pessimistic and more rejecting as they go. That predicts something specific and measurable, namely a drift across a session. So three studies watched the drift.
Acceptance fell as people kept looking. Across three studies, participants immediately started rejecting more hypothetical and actual partners when dating online. That cumulated on average in a 27 percent decrease in the chance of acceptance from the first partner option to the last. It was explained by an overall decline in satisfaction with pictures and in . For women, it also meant a decreasing likelihood of matches.
The paradox of modern dating is that online platforms provide more opportunities to find a romantic partner than ever before, and people are nevertheless more likely to be single. That is the kind of mismatch that invites an explanation located in the medium rather than in the users.
The authors hypothesized a rejection mind-set, which is applied to people. Continued access to virtually unlimited potential partners, on their account, makes somebody more pessimistic and more rejecting as they continue. The prediction is a drift within a session rather than a stable preference, which is what makes it testable.
Across three studies, participants immediately started to reject more hypothetical and actual partners when dating online. The drift accumulated into an average decrease of 27 percent in the chance of acceptance from the first partner option to the last, which is a substantial change in judgment over a single sitting.
The mechanism the data support is a gloomier chooser rather than worse options. The pattern was explained by an overall decline in satisfaction with the pictures and in perceived dating success. For women, the rejection mind-set also resulted in a decreasing likelihood of having . The authors conclude that people gradually close off from mating opportunities when dating online. Note the scope: this is behavior within sessions, part of it hypothetical, and not a measurement of anybody’s dating outcomes over time.
wat. The longer people scrolled, the more they rejected, ending about 27 percent less likely to accept anyone than when they started.
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It is a property of the interface rather than of the people using it. An endless list produces a worse judge of the options in it, which turns the abundance into the problem.
How do we know?
Pronk and Denissen ran three studies of online dating behavior, tracking acceptance and rejection of hypothetical and actual partner options across a session, alongside satisfaction with pictures and perceived dating success.
What is still unknown
Three studies of behavior within a session, mixing hypothetical and real partner options. A within-session drift is not the same as the long-run outcome of someone’s dating life, which is the claim it tends to get used for.
Learn something?
Where to next
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