No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
There Are Plenty of Fish in the Sea: The Effects of Choice Overload and Reversibility on Online Daters’ Satisfaction With Selected Partners
Abstract
Online dating is often lauded for improving the dating experience by giving singles large pools of potential partners from whom to choose. This experiment investigates how the number of choices online daters are given, and whether these choices are reversible, affects romantic outcomes. Drawing on the choice overload and decision reversibility theoretical frameworks, we show that, a week after making their selection, online daters who chose from a large set of potential partners (i.e., 24) were less satisfied with their choice than those who selected from a small set (i.e., 6), and were more likely to change their selection. While choice reversibility did not affect daters’ satisfaction, those who selected from a large pool and had the ability to reverse their choice were the least satisfied with their selected partner after one week. The results advance understanding of how media features related to choice affect interpersonal evaluations.
... Committed romantic relationships typically involve attachment to both the partner and the relationship, interdependence, a long-term orientation, loyalty, and love (Chan, 2017;Rusbult et al., 1998). Romanticized relationship beliefs are ubiquitous throughout Western society (Sprecher & Metts, 1989, 1999, with soulmate belief particularly common, endorsing the idealized belief that there is only one true love for each person (Cobb et al., 2003;Sprecher & Metts, 1989, 1999. ...
... 102) and features of the Tinder application may promote the pursuit of hookups. First, the application's design sees a magnitude of potential matches presented to users and thus has the potential to generate perceptions of an endless supply of potential partners (Chernev et al., 2015;D'Angelo & Toma, 2017). Second, users swipe on potential matches based primarily on a series of pictures, which some researchers (Finkel et al., 2012) have described as a medium for increased sexual objectification and superficiality. ...
... Participants rate their level of agreement on a 7-point Likert-type scale from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree), with higher scores reflecting stronger soulmate belief endorsement. Cobb et al. (2003) previously reported the internal consistency of scores on this subscale to be Cronbach's a = .88. ...
... These relationships between dating apps and risky sexual behavior, and risky sexual behavior and delay discounting of sex suggest that all three may be linked, or that dating app use may be a variable that moderates the relationship between risky sexual behavior and the delay discounting of sex. If the engagement with dating apps does moderate the relationship between sexual discounting and risky sexual behavior, then research may focus on dating apps to determine why this may be, such as motivation for using dating apps (Chan, 2017;Gatter & Hodkinson, 2016;Tanner & Huggins, 2018) or the high number of potential partner options available (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Spar, 2020). The present study was exploratory in nature, and sought to examine the relationship dating app use has to risky sexual behavior and the delay discounting of sex. ...
... The stronger relationship indicates that when it comes to risky sexual behavior, hypothetical sexual discounting has predictive utility for dating app users but not abstainers, perhaps because dating app users are more actively seeking new partners and thus create more opportunities for sexual risk taking when matching and meeting with a potential partner (Alexopoulos et al., 2020;Blackhart et al., 2014). Dating apps may also boast a plethora of potential partners to choose from, and a large array of options may lead to poor cognitive-behavioral performance outcomes such as diminished executive functioning, decreased stamina, and reduced self-control behavior (Saltsman et al., 2019;Vohs et al., 2008), increasing the likelihood of risky sexual behavior with those partners from this choice overload (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Schwartz, 2004). ...
... p = 0.616, N = 49) choices affect the degree of discounting in the population (e.g., quality of sex, partner quality; Jarmolowicz et al., 2015). Future researchers may also seek out and extrapolate more variables that may influence sexually risky behavior and sexual discounting, such as drug dependence (e.g., Reynolds, 2006) and obesity (e.g., Price et al., 2016), and investigate the potential impact choice overload may have on the risky sexual behavior and delay discounting of sex for dating app users (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017). The findings of the present study were exploratory in nature, and as such replication and further investigation on dating apps and their effect and relationship to sexual discounting and sexually risky behavior is warranted. ...
Research on delay discounting and sex suggests that discounting measures correlate to risky sexual behavior. Dating applications are a growing trend in sexual partner seeking and dating culture, but the relationship between dating applications, delay discounting, and risky sexual behavior is relatively unknown. The present study sought to examine the relationship among reported dating application use, delay discounting, and risky sexual behavior. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire that included sexual history and dating-app status, a sexual risk survey, and a delay discounting task involving minutes of hypothetical sexual activity. Sexual discounting was significantly correlated with measures of sexual risk. The strength in correlation was higher for those using dating applications and nonexistent in those not using dating applications. No significant differences existed between dating application users and abstainers for sexual risk or sexual discounting. The implications regarding safe sex practices are discussed.
... In this context, experimental studies using dating app paradigms have confirmed that when presented with a large set of dating app profiles, individuals reject more options, are less satisfied with their choices, and reverse them more than when exposed to smaller sets (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Pronk & Denissen, 2020;Wu & Chiou, 2009). Yet, we lack evidence on the effects of partner abundance on fear of being single. ...
... Experimental studies have shown that induced partner abundance versus scarcity has undesired consequences on relationships in that it increases infidelity intentions Arnocky et al., 2016) and partner demands (Locke et al., 2020). Furthermore, excessive choice on dating apps is detrimental to decision-making in the way that individuals reject more options, are less satisfied with their choices, reverse them more when presented with large sets of dating app profiles compared to smaller choice sets (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Pronk & Denissen, 2020;Wu & Chiou, 2009). ...
... Thus, with our study, we extend prior research on partner abundance on dating apps (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Pronk & Denissen, 2020;Wu & Chiou, 2009) by showing effects on fear of being single and state self-esteem: Excessive options not only influence how individuals feel about the decision or the choice alternatives, it even influences how they feel about themselves and their chances to find a relationship. It seems particularly concerning that already a single exposure to an excessive number of dating app profiles had a small but significant effect on fear of being single and state self-esteem. ...
Dating apps advertise with high availability of potential partners because users seem to prefer extensive choice. However, on the basis of consumer decision making research, we theorized that such excessive choice could have adverse effects, specifically on fear of being single, self-esteem, and partner choice overload. In Study 1, a survey with 667 adults between 18 and 67, dating app use was associated with an increased perception that the number of potential partners is numerous which, in turn, predicted higher fear of being single. In Study 2, we replicated the positive effect of partner availability on fear of being single in an experimental design with 248 adults between 18 and 38. We experimentally induced low, moderate, or high partner availability by assigning 11, 31, or 91 dating app profiles of allegedly available potential partners to participants. High (compared to low) partner availability increased fear of being single, decreased participants’ state self-esteem, and increased partner choice overload. Findings demonstrate pitfalls of excessive swiping on dating apps and extend choice overload literature by revealing effects on novel outcomes.
... Several experimental studies have shown that providing a large pool of potential partners creates choice overload (D'Angelo and Toma, 2017), makes online daters more pessimistic and rejecting (Pronk and Denissen, 2020), and triggers more searching and decreases the perceived quality of the final partner selection (Wu and Chiou, 2009). Moreover, studies point out that online daters are likely to remain active on dating platforms even when reporting to be in a committed relationship, with numbers ranging between 15% and 40% (e.g. ...
... Supplying online daters with an abundance of quality alternatives is a better strategy as it will likely keep them coming back to the platform (e.g. Alexopoulos et al., 2020;D'Angelo and Toma, 2017). The scarcity principle provides one way of thinking about how people are affected by alternatives (see Finkel and Eastwick, 2009). ...
... Although some may argue that online connections are not as important as FtF interactions, research suggests that individuals who report engagement with others online experience even more intimacy compared to their FtF relationships (Scott et al., 2006). Moreover, although few studies have investigated satisfaction with online partners, some indicate that satisfaction does play an important role in the online dating process, as those who were less satisfied with their matches were more likely to continue their search for other partners (D'Angelo and Toma, 2017). Online interactions are also used to make decisions about future meetings (Sharabi and Dykstra-DeVette, 2019), which suggests that some degree of satisfaction must be present for partners to escalate the relationship offline. ...
The current mixed-methods study reports the results of a cross-sectional survey of 205 online daters and uses the Investment Model to examine the antecedents of commitment in online dating and users’ decisions to delete their online dating account(s). We hypothesized that the quality of alternatives, investments, and satisfaction with the online dating relationship would mediate the association between online dating intensity and commitment, which, in turn, would predict the intention to terminate an account. The analyses revealed that online dating intensity was associated with greater commitment and a lower likelihood of account termination. There were also specific indirect effects on commitment through the quality of alternatives, investments, and satisfaction, and on termination through investments. Responses to an open-ended question provided more information about users’ decisions to quit online dating. These results point to ways online dating may facilitate the desire for commitment while potentially undermining the long-term stability of relationships.
... There may also be other yet uncovered explanations, such as the filtering that people are able to do in order to find a partner that fits their criteria for an ideal mate or the feeling that someone better might be just around the corner. In one experiment, having access to a larger quantity of potential partners in online dating left people feeling less satisfied with their decisions, potentially undermining long-term commitment (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017). To begin to explore the downstream effects of the online dating process on relationships in participants' own words, a second research asks: RQ2: What are the long-term outcomes of the stages of development in online dating for relationships? ...
... Participants also experienced triumphs and frustrations that led to cycles of online dating use. Research has documented the negative effects of choice in online dating (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Pronk & Denissen, 2020), yet these findings point to situations where people may benefit from the opportunity to get to know a variety of different partners across multiple platforms. Participants' approaches to online dating were shaped by whether they were digital natives and immigrants who adopted these platforms at an early age or who came to them later in life (Prensky, 2001). ...
This study takes a relational stage approach to understanding the role of online dating in the progression of relationships toward marriage. Fifty interviews were conducted with individuals from across the United States (ages 21–62; M age = 33.42) who were married or engaged to someone they met via online dating. The results present a comprehensive view of online dating through 4 stages and 13 subcategories of relationship development. Participants described meeting through a process of technology-enabled relationship initiation. Once the relationship escalated offline, they entered a period of multimodal development that demonstrated the enduring influence technology continued to have after meeting in person. Throughout this process, participants stressed the role of online dating platforms in breaking down barriers and reinforcing divisions. Three outcomes for marriage were also uncovered. Findings from this study suggest that online dating is changing more than where couples meet and have theoretical and practical implications.
... Users of dating apps overall seem to face the same paradox when facing multiple choices. A study on choice overload in dating apps showed that repeating the decision process multiple times reduces the choice satisfaction in time [35]. The perception that better quality partners are available make individuals less satisfied with their current partner. ...
... The perception that better quality partners are available make individuals less satisfied with their current partner. Also, online daters believe that they actually have more choice on dating apps and have a greater tendency to be dissatisfied with the choices they make [35]. Another result of the choice overload aspect is that users of dating apps are prone to adopting "rejection mind-set" [24] when faced with endless dating options, as "the stream of partner profiles can set in motion an overall feeling of dissatisfaction and pessimism about finding a mate, which leads users to gradually "close off" from mating opportunities" [24, p. 8]. ...
Dating apps are increasingly used by a global population. Platforms' design supports diverse motivations of use, but specific options incentivize some behaviors more than others. Also, users' expectations of intimacy are driven by a commercial technological product primarily designed for profit. The emotional investment of users is considerable if we are to ponder the vast and complicated realm of love and dating. This paper discusses the social impact of digital dating platforms with a case study of Tinder app, through an analysis of its business model and designed user incentives. Using the frictionless design of digital apps, dating apps and especially Tinder contribute to the standardization and even McDonaldization of romance, in which fast love and intimacy are pursued and consumed in an accelerated fashion, redefining socially expected scenarios for relationships.
... As a result, meeting online has displaced other avenues of meeting potential partners. 19 Settling for second best Perhaps the most prominent feature of online dating is the sheer availability of potential romantic partners 20,21 ; users can now participate in a mutual selection process designed to be as effortless as choosing dinner on a food delivery app. However, the findings show that a plethora of attractive options do not equate to better decisions being made-and can even create barriers to cyberintimacy. ...
... Settling for second best How the plethora of potential dating partners can lead to poorer partner selection outcomes [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] The initiator advantage The effects of being first party to initiate an online connection [28][29][30][31] Conversion rates Factors that lead to a higher likelihood of meeting in person 30,[32][33][34] Love at first byte Using social networking sites for online dating [35][36][37][38] Maintenance Public displays of affection How publicly announcing ones' relationship is associated with various relationship outcomes [40][41][42][43] Staying in-sync Perceived similarities or differences in outcomes 44 The green-eyed beast Technology-use behaviors associated with jealousy 37,45,46 Technoference When the use of technology interferes with relationships 6,47,48 Cybersexuality How technology is shaping sexual behaviors [49][50][51][52][53] Dissolution Getting over it Postbreakup behaviors that can help or harm post-traumatic growth 57,58 Cyberstalking Using technology to harass or stalk others [59][60][61][62][63][64][65] Other relevant literature on cyberintimacy that was included in the review [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]39,[54][55][56][66][67][68][69][70][71][72] CYBERINTIMACY: A SCOPING REVIEW 661 ...
With a swipe, click, or delete, people are now able to seek and sustain romance in unprecedented ways. The emerging research shows that cyberintimacy, or the phenomenon of technology-mediated communication between partners and potential romantic interests, significantly impacts the way we form, maintain, and even extinguish romantic relationships. Hence, this scoping review aims to (a) delineate how our use of technology-mediated communication is associated with specific outcomes (e.g., satisfaction and quality) throughout the romantic relationship lifecycle, and (b) identify emerging themes in the research. Adhering to Arksey and O'Mayley's six-step framework methodology, we performed a systematic database search, literature screening, and qualitative synthesis of the findings. Seventy-two studies were selected from a pool of 4,062 articles derived from a systematic search of six academic databases. The findings show that cyberintimacy has a profound impact on outcomes in three crucial stages of the relationship lifecycle-from the way people find and field partners online through the process of initiation; to the means by which partners use technology to perform relationship maintenance; and finally, the ways in which people cope with the process of dissolution by using technology to reclaim a sense of agency.
... In response to the growth in online dating, there has been an increase in research that explores dating apps and interpersonal relationships (Alexopoulos et al., 2020;Brimeyer and Smith, 2012;D'Angelo and Toma, 2016) as well as investigations into the motivations of dating app users (Bryant and Sheldon, 2017;Chan, 2017;Sumter et al., 2017). Further research explores the ways in which online dating affects trust, jealousy, and fidelity in a relationship (Alexopoulos et al., 2020). ...
... Once assigned, subjects were tasked with selecting a partner. Researchers found that those individuals who picked a partner from the large dating pool were significantly less satisfied, and much more likely to change their choice when compared to those students who picked from the small pool (D'Angelo and Toma, 2016). Because these are some of the potential pitfalls of online dating, this study examines the extent to which Mutual users are approving or dissatisfied with the app. ...
Dating apps have become an increasingly viable option for individuals seeking interpersonal romantic relationships. While there is significant research regarding user motivation on dating apps such as Bumble, Tinder, and Match.com, there is no published research that discusses the motivations of Mutual app users. Developed as a dating app to target members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Mutual allows users to find potential mates who share their religious background and specify their relationship readiness (from “Into Dating I Guess” to “Ready for a Ring”). This research aims to illuminate the various motivations, attitudes, and opinions of Mutual app users through Q methodology, which identifies perceptual groups among homogeneous populations through a factor analysis of participants’ agreement with similar statements regarding Mutual use. Findings indicated four factor groups: the Relationship Readies (i.e., those serious about dating), the Swipeaholics (i.e., those looking for entertainment), the Faithless (i.e., those who felt pressured to use Mutual), and the Eligible Optimists (i.e., those who saw the app as a convenient, entertaining way to date). Different from other research on dating apps, this study indicates that people may use a niche religion-focused dating app to find individuals with similar moral values or due to external pressure from others. Results warrant further investigation into niche dating apps.
... For example, when asked to pick the best partner, access to more partner profiles resulted in more searching, more time spent on evaluating bad choice options, and a lower likelihood of selecting the option with the best personal fit (Wu & Chiou, 2009). Likewise, when a choice set increases, people end up being less satisfied with their ultimate partner choice and more prone to reverse their decision (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017). The adverse effects of choice overload are also mentioned in articles in popular media mentioning phenomena such as "Tinder fatigue" (Beck, 2016) or "dating burnout" (Blair, 2017). ...
... To shed more light on the paradoxical effects of modern dating, we studied what happens once people enter an online dating environment. Our innovative design allowed us to observe how people's partner choices unfold when people are presented with partner options sequentially-as opposed to simultaneously (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Wu & Chiou, 2009). Our main expectation was that online dating will set off a rejection mind-set, leading people to become increasingly likely to reject partners to the extent that they have been presented with more options. ...
The paradox of modern dating is that online platforms provide more opportunities to find a romantic partner than ever before, but people are nevertheless more likely to be single. We hypothesized the existence of a rejection mind-set: The continued access to virtually unlimited potential partners makes people more pessimistic and rejecting. Across three studies, participants immediately started to reject more hypothetical and actual partners when dating online, cumulating on average in a decrease of 27% in chance on acceptance from the first to the last partner option. This was explained by an overall decline in satisfaction with pictures and perceived dating success. For women, the rejection mind-set also resulted in a decreasing likelihood of having romantic matches. Our findings suggest that people gradually “close off” from mating opportunities when online dating.
... The opportunity to interact with more people through online dating could mean they are able to make more informed decisions about a partner relative to those with more limited dating experience. Alternatively, it could also mean that people who date online become overwhelmed by their options, potentially leading to less satisfaction and poorer decisions in a spouse (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Wu & Chiou, 2009). ...
Drawing on social ecology theory, this study compares the marriages of people who met in online dating to those who were introduced offline. A survey was administered to a sample of 923 married U.S. adults, roughly half of whom met their spouse in online dating. The results provided evidence of an online dating effect, with online daters reporting less satisfying and stable marriages than offline daters. Importantly, effect sizes were modest, and means showed marital quality was still relatively high in both groups. Effects did not vary based on individual differences, but they could be explained by external pressures (i.e., societal marginalization and geographic distance) on participants’ relationships. Participants who used online dating confronted greater societal marginalization and geographic distance, which affected their disclosure and perceptions of network approval and, in turn, the satisfaction and stability of their marriages. Implications for research on online dating and marriage are discussed.
... However, dating apps offer hundreds of profiles and users can easily get lost in the eternity of possibilities. Several experiments have shown that when online daters excessively browse through profiles, they increasingly reject, reverse, and regret their partner choices (e.g., D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Pronk & Denissen, 2020;Wu & Chiou, 2009). More specifically, increased swiping led to feelings of overload with regard to partner choice (Thomas et al., 2022). ...
Studies showed adverse experiences related to the use of dating applications such as Tinder. However, it remains unclear by which mechanism and under which conditions dating app use has undesired effects. As a mechanism, we investigated excessive swiping, operationalized as youth’s mental preoccupation with profile browsing and swiping compulsivity. As moderators, we investigated swiping in assessment (i.e., critically evaluating profiles), and locomotion (i.e., taking intuitive gut decisions) modes. To this end, we surveyed a quota-sample of 464 transition age dating app users (16–25 years old). Moderated mediation analyses showed that dating app use was associated with excessive swiping, which was in turn linked to a) upward social comparison, b) fear of being single, and c) partner choice overload. In conclusion, frequent dating app use was related to undesired outcomes only when it was related to excessive swiping. Neither assessment, nor locomotion mode moderated these relationships; thus, excessive swiping is detrimental for young dating app users’ well-being, no matter how they swipe.
... 2,3,6 These results regarding reversible decisions extend to a wide array of scenarios; for example, a study showed that reversible decisions reduce online daters' satisfaction with their potential partners. 13 Gilbert and Ebert 3 were the first to experimentally investigate decision reversibility and satisfaction; they asked participants to rank nine posters according to their liking, and then told the participants that they could remove any one of the two posters they had ranked 3 and 4. For half of the participants, this decision was reversible; for the other half, it was not, and they had only one chance to choose without the possibility of changing afterward. The researchers found that participants under the irreversible condition liked their chosen poster more than those under the reversible condition. ...
Purpose:
Extensive research has shown that reversible decisions yield lower post-decision satisfaction than irreversible decisions. However, to date, little is known about how decision reversibility affects post-decision satisfaction. Based on regret theory, this study aimed to examine the mediating role of counterfactual thinking and anticipated regret in the association between decision reversibility and satisfaction.
Methods:
In this study (130 participants), participants were randomly assigned to two personnel decision situations with reversible and irreversible decision outcomes, and all participants completed questionnaires during the process of completing the decision task. The questionnaires used included the Counterfactual Thinking for Negative Events Scale, Anticipated Regret Scale, and satisfaction questionnaire. Finally, the data were statistically analyzed using the base package in R and PROCESS 3.5.
Results:
The results show that (1) Compared to irreversible decisions, reversible decisions have a significant negative impact on satisfaction. (2) Counterfactual thinking plays a mediating role between decision reversibility and satisfaction. (3) Compared with irreversible decisions, reversible decisions further lowered the level of post-decision satisfaction through the chain mediating effects of counterfactual thinking and anticipated regret.
Conclusion:
People's lowered levels of post-decision satisfaction in the reversible decision condition relate to increased levels of counterfactual thinking and anticipated regret. In addition, counterfactual thinking can play a mediating role alone, indicating that this variable may be critical in understanding the mechanisms by which decision reversibility affects satisfaction. This knowledge may be used to help people optimize their decision-making behavior.
... First, having access to more potential partners is not always experienced as positive. Rather the contrary, choice overload can undermine feelings of autonomy and control within the dating process (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Lenton et al., 2008;Lenton & Francesconi, 2010). Ultimately, the feeling of being overwhelmed by the available options, that is, by the sheer PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSONALIZATION 20 number of people that one could and may want to get in touch with, often leads users to making superficial and ill-advised decisions Pronk & Denissen, 2020;Wu & Chiou, 2009;. ...
The personalization of digital environments is becoming ubiquitous due to the rise of AI-based algorithms and recommender systems. Arguably, this technological development has far-reaching consequences for individuals and societies alike. In this article, we propose a psychological model of the effects of personalization in digital environments, which connects personalization with motivational tendencies, psychological needs, and well-being. Based on the model, we review studies from three areas of application—news feeds and websites, music streaming, and online dating—to explain both the positive and the negative effects of personalization on individuals. We conclude that personalization can lead to desirable outcomes such as reducing choice overload. However, personalized digital environments without transparency and without the option for users to play an active role in the personalization process potentially pose a danger to human well-being. Design recommendations as well as avenues for future research that follow from these conclusions are being discussed.
... Participants face a growing number of choices regarding their level of participation: Which platform to use, what to wear, whether to open one's camera, etc. This wider range of choices and optionality runs the risk of lowering satisfaction and inducing disquiet, as amply evidenced by the literature on choice overload (Schwartz, 2004;D'Angelo and Toma, 2017;Thai and Yuksel, 2017). Moreover, the spiritual benefit of SD works often arises from undergoing arduous trials. ...
During the 2020 COVID-19 epidemic a variety of social activities migrated online, including religious ceremonies and rituals. One such instance is the case of Santo Daime, a Brazilian rainforest religion that utilizes the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca in its rituals. During the pandemic, multiple Santo Daime rituals involving the consumption of ayahuasca took place online, mediated through Zoom and other online platforms. The phenomenon is notable since the effects of hallucinogens are defined by context (set and setting) and Santo Daime rituals are habitually governed by punctilious regulations aimed at directing the experience of participants. The abrupt move to online space thus augurs significant implications in the context of hallucinogenic rituals. This paper looks at this development and its repercussions for entheogenic rituals, as it asks how do psychedelic rituals change when they move online? Building on the author’s previous work on set and setting in the Santo Daime religion, the paper introduces accounts from 12 semi-structured interviews with daimistas participating in online daime rituals, approached through the prism of set and setting, and the study of online religiosity. The analysis points at several key dynamics emerging in the context of virtual rituals. The migration online allowed for the continuation of Santo Daime entheogenic rituals at a time of social distancing, fostered a sense of global brotherhood and opened new possibility for religious participation and learning. Concurrently, online ritual produced an impoverished ritual experience and novel types of challenges including a higher potential for distractions, technical difficulties, and low sensory fidelity. Other novel challenges included social anxiety and an in-built tension between the social and spiritual dimensions of ritual. Finally, some participants were concerned by the cultural context of online rituals: technological mediation, consumerism, commodification, and digital divide. The limitations of digital technology appear amplified by the highly immersive, body oriented, experientially intensified context of the psychedelic experience. This paper contributes to the literature on the extra-pharmacological factors shaping experiences with psychedelics, as well as to the literature on the consequences of the adoption of digital media technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
... Online dating websites and applications are quickly becoming the primary method of meeting potential partners in the Western world (Rosenfeld et al., 2019), and thus greatly influence how we identify and choose potential suitors. For example, they present users with an almost inexhaustible number of potential partners that can create choice-overload (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017). One method of coping with so many choices is to filter them by one's necessities (Li et al., 2002(Li et al., , 2013Thomas et al., 2020). ...
How humans choose their mates is a central feature of adult life and an area of considerable disagreement among relationship researchers. However, few studies have examined mate choice (instead of mate preferences) around the world, and fewer still have considered data from online dating services. Using data from more than 1.8 million online daters from 24 countries, we examined the role of sex and resource-acquisition ability (as indicated by level of education and income) in mate choice using multilevel modeling. We then attempted to understand country-level variance by examining factors such as gender equality and the operational sex ratio. In every nation, a person’s resource-acquisition ability was positively associated with the amount of attention they received from other site members. There was a marked sex difference in this effect; resource-acquisition ability improved the attention received by men almost 2.5 times that of women. This sex difference was in every country, admittedly with some variance between nations. Several country-level traits moderated the effects of resource-acquisition ability, and in the case of unemployment this moderating role differed by sex. Overall, country-level effects were more consistent with evolutionary explanations than sociocultural ones. The results suggest a robust effect of resource-acquisition ability on real-life mate choice that transcends international boundaries and is reliably stronger for men than women. Cross-cultural variance in the role of resource-acquisition ability appears sensitive to local competition and gender equality at the country level.
... Outside the realm of perceptual tasks, many everyday decisions instead rely on subjective valuations of choice alternatives or recall of information from memory. Under such circumstances, changes of mind can lead to lower choice satisfaction [14][15][16][17][18], regret [19][20][21], or profound changes in worldview [22]. ...
The ability to change initial decisions in the face of new or potentially conflicting information is fundamental to adaptive behavior. From perceptual tasks to multiple-choice tests, research has shown that changes of mind often improve task performance by correcting initial errors. Decision makers must, however, strike a balance between improvements that might arise from changes of mind and potential energetic, temporal, and psychological costs. In this review, we provide an overview of the change-of-mind literature, focusing on key behavioral findings, computational mechanisms, and neural correlates. We propose a conceptual framework that comprises two core decision dimensions – time and evidence source – which link changes of mind across decision contexts, as a first step toward an integrated psychological account of changes of mind.
... In each round they had a fixed budget they could invest in any combination of investment alternatives, using up to 77 different funds (see Figures 1 and 4). The large number of alternative possible investment choices presented to users was intentionally designed to induce choice overload [2,31,41], which is typical in many online environments, ranging from e-commerce to movie rating to dating platforms [12]. Since considering all 77 alternatives and their tradeoffs is highly time consuming, a natural heuristic for dealing with such choice overload would be for a user to seek additional information about the alternatives they face. ...
Users increasingly face multiple interface features on one hand, and constraints on available resources (e.g., time, attention) on the other. Understanding the sensitivity of users' well-being to feature type and resource constraints, is critical for informed design. Building on microeconomic theory, and focusing on social information features, users' interface choices were conceptualized as an exchange of resources (e.g., time), in return for access to goods (social information features). We studied how sensitive users' well-being is to features' type, and to their cost level and type. We found that (1) increased cost of feature use leads to decreased well-being, (2) users' well-being is a function of features' cost type, and (3) users' well-being is sensitive to differences in feature type. The approach used here to quantify user well-being derived from interface features offers a basis for asynchronous feature comparison.
... In fact, recent research has indicated that "choice overload" effects that occur in shopping or consumer environments can also occur in online dating environments. When faced with too many potential partners, daters report feeling overloaded with options, which can lead to feelings of reduced satisfaction with their partner-selection decisions, greater likelihood to reverse their decisions, and greater regret with their selected partners (see D'Angelo & Toma, 2017;Lenton et al., 2008;Tong et al., 2016;Wu & Chiou, 2009). ...
... In the online environment, there is a negative effect of choice set size on satisfaction and choice confidence when users check facts on search engines from a shorter rather than longer list of results (6 versus 24) [46]. A similar effect is found in an online dating pool where users reported lower choice satisfaction when presented with a large set of potential partners versus a smaller pool [4]. Such a negative effect seems to be amplified under time constraints. ...
AI-based voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa deliver personalized product recommendations in order to match consumers' needs. The use of voice assistants for shopping purposes incorporates elements of risk affecting when and how they are considered trusted relationship partners. In this uncertain environment, it is unclear 'when' voice assistants are capable of gaining trust and 'how' the development of such a trusted relationship affects decisions. This research explores the effect of trusting beliefs towards voice assistants on decision satisfaction through the indirect effect of consideration set size (n. of options), in the context of voice shopping. Findings of an individual-session online experiment (N=180) show a positive direct effect of trust on customer's satisfaction and a mediating role of set size, confirming consumers' bias towards default choices. This study highlights the consequences of trust in AI-enabled voice assistants for decision-making during utilitarian purchases.
... There are a number of behavior change methods and theories, such as social normative and social cognitive theory-based interventions, that have been broadly and successfully applied to change health behaviors, including HIV risk behaviors [26] and smoking cessation [27]. These methods are typically rooted in social and behavioral psychological theory [20] and broadly suggest that interventions will be more efficacious if they (1) make it easy to engage in the target behavior [28][29][30][31][32], (2) make the behavior routine rather than infrequent and unpredictable [33,34], (3) incorporate social components such as support and/or competition [2,[35][36][37], (4) build change incrementally (eg, dieters who focused on the daily steps of eating healthy were more likely to adhere to their healthy eating routine compared with those who focused on the end goal of losing weight [and these individuals actually gained more weight at follow-up]) [38], (5) develop intrinsic [39][40][41] and (6) extrinsic motivation (being cautious about the sometimes negative effects of incentives on behavior) [42,43], and (7) provide ways for people to reflect on their progress [44,45]. Integration of these basic behavior change components may help to improve intervention behavior change-related outcomes. ...
A growing number of interventions incorporate digital and social technologies (eg, social media, mobile phone apps, and wearable devices) into their design for behavior change. However, because of a number of factors, including changing trends in the use of technology over time, results on the efficacy of these interventions have been mixed. An updated framework is needed to help researchers better plan behavioral technology interventions by anticipating the needed resources and potential changes in trends that may affect interventions over time. Focusing on the domain of health interventions as a use case, we present the Adaptive Behavioral Components (ABC) model for technology-based behavioral interventions. ABC is composed of five components: basic behavior change; intervention, or problem-focused characteristics; population, social, and behavioral characteristics; individual-level and personality characteristics; and technology characteristics. ABC was designed with the goals of (1) guiding high-level development for digital technology-based interventions; (2) helping interventionists consider, plan for, and adapt to potential barriers that may arise during longitudinal interventions; and (3) providing a framework to potentially help increase the consistency of findings among digital technology intervention studies. We describe the planning of an HIV prevention intervention as a case study for how to implement ABC into intervention design. Using the ABC model to plan future interventions might help to improve the design of and adherence to longitudinal behavior change intervention protocols; allow these interventions to adapt, anticipate, and prepare for changes that may arise over time; and help to potentially improve intervention behavior change outcomes. Additional research is needed on the influence of each of ABC's components to help improve intervention design and implementation.
... Other research has addressed satisfaction with mate choice decisions when there are numerous options. D'Angelo and Toma (2017) found that online daters who chose from 24 options were less satisfied with their choice compared to those who chose from six options. Furthermore, those who chose from the larger set and were given the option of reversing their decision 1 week later were the least satisfied. ...
Evolutionary mismatch concepts are being fruitfully employed in a number of research domains, including medicine, health, and human cognition and behavior to generate novel hypotheses and better understand existing findings. We contend that research on human mating will benefit from explicitly addressing both the evolutionary mismatch of the people we study and the evolutionary mismatch of people conducting the research. We identified nine mismatch characteristics important to the study of human mating and reviewed the literature related to each of these characteristics. Many of the people we study are: exposed to social media, in temporary relationships, relocatable, autonomous in their mating decisions, nulliparous, in groups that are socially segmented, in an educational setting, confronted with lots of options, and young. We applied mismatch concepts to each characteristic to illustrate the importance of incorporating mismatch into this research area. Our aim in this paper is not to identify all potential mismatch effects in mating research, nor to challenge or disqualify existing data. Rather, we demonstrate principled ways of thinking about evolutionary mismatch in order to propel progress in mating research. We show how attending to the potential effects of mismatch can help us refine our theoretical and methodological approaches and deepen our understanding of existing patterns in the empirical record. We conclude with specific recommendations about how to include consideration of evolutionary mismatch into research on human mating.
... For example, Allon et al. (2017) examined whether an online matching platform (e.g., Upwork) can capture value by using different tests to certify that service providers' skills (e.g., app or web programming) are above certain thresholds. Also, there is a need to understand the risks and costs that are unique to online matching platforms such as over-communication (Kanoria and Saban, 2017), and choice overload (Schwartz, 2004;D'Angelo and Toma, 2016). In addition, the economics literature on marriage focuses on vertical quality differentiation across users such that each user can be of either "high type" or "low type" and their types are observable and static (see, e.g., Becker, 1973;Burdett and Coles, 1997;Damiano and Li, 2007). ...
Economic growth in many countries is increasingly driven by successful startups that operate as online platforms. These success stories have motivated us to define and classify various online platforms according to their business models. This study discusses strategic and operational issues arising from five types of online platforms (resource sharing, matching, crowdsourcing, review, and crowdfunding) and presents some research opportunities for operations management scholars to explore.
... For instance, an experimental study conducted in the U.S., in which undergraduate students could select a partner from a large versus small pool of potential partners, revealed that participants who selected a partner from a large dating pool were less satisfied with their choice and more likely to change their choice compared to those with fewer options (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017). Similarly, in a Taiwanese experiment among young adults, researchers found that an abundance of dating options triggered more searching and decreased the quality of the final partner choice (Wu & Chiou, 2009). ...
The present study was conducted to explore the cognitive processes linking people's perceptions of their mobile dating app experience and their intention to commit infidelity. Three hundred and ninety-five participants were recruited through a U.S. based university (44.6%) and MTurk (55.4%). Our results indicate that people's perceived success on a dating app was positively associated with their intention to commit infidelity through self-perceived desirability, and negatively associated with their intention to commit infidelity through perceived amount of available partners. These findings are discussed in light of theories of relational investment.
... The importance of choice is a fundamental individualistic value. Dating websites offer choice of partners that can be overwhelming and even counterproductive (D'Angelo & Toma, 2017 ). In line with the hypothesis that communications technologies push values and behavior in an individualistic direction, an increasing number of people in almost every age group are expanding their choice of partners by using dating websites. ...
... In other words, the user is able to select specific criteria based on their own preferences to search for other daters and then choose the individuals with whom they wish to interact. Some ODS, such as OKCupid, use a mixture of both methods 5 . ODS offer convenience, flexibility and the ability to tap into a vast pool of potential partners that one may be unlikely to meet in everyday life. ...
Research investigating the personal experiences of online daters is currently limited. Moreover, evidence implies that men are likely to experience online dating rather differently to their female counterparts and that this discrepancy warrants further investigation. Eight heterosexual adult males aged 18–60 were interviewed about their experiences of and attitudes to using online dating sites and apps. Data were analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis. A number of themes were identified from the data, including “necessary but effective online dating”, reflecting the perceived utility of dating sites and their ability to enhance certainty and reduce rejection salience. “Negative impact on self” was revealed through participants’ experiences of online interactions, with participants demonstrating various protective strategies to maintain self-integrity. “Clouded judgements”, insofar as the intentions of other daters were often more difficult to judge accurately, and “frustration”, relating to negative experiences with online dating platforms and the gendered norms within them, were also noted. The last theme was one of “resiliency” which was demonstrated throughout descriptions of participant experiences. Findings provide a rich narrative of the lived experiences of male online daters and the strategies they employ to reap rewards as well as the barriers to success that they incur.
Each day people make decisions about complex topics such as health and personal finances. Causal models of these domains have been created to aid decisions, but the resulting models are often complex and it is not known whether people can use them successfully. We investigate the trade-off between simplicity and complexity in decision making, testing diagrams tailored to target choices (Experiments 1 and 2), and with relevant causal paths highlighted (Experiment 3), finding that simplicity or directing attention to simple causal paths leads to better decisions. We test the boundaries of this effect (Experiment 4), finding that including a small amount of information beyond that related to the target answer has a detrimental effect. Finally, we examine whether people know what information they need (Experiment 5). We find that simple, targeted, information still leads to the best decisions, while participants who believe they do not need information or seek out the most complex information performed worse.
Why do people fall in love? Does passion fade with time? What makes for a happy, healthy relationship? This introduction to relationship science follows the lifecycle of a relationship – from attraction and initiation, to the hard work of relationship maintenance, to dissolution and ways to strengthen a relationship. Designed for advanced undergraduates studying psychology, communication or family studies, this textbook presents a fresh, diversity-infused approach to relationship science. It includes real-world examples and critical-thinking questions, callout boxes that challenge students to make connections, and researcher interviews that showcase the many career paths of relationship scientists. Article Spotlights reveal cutting-edge methods, while Diversity and Inclusion boxes celebrate the variety found in human love and connection. Throughout the book, students see the application of theory and come to recognize universal themes in relationships as well as the nuances of many findings. Instructors can access lecture slides, an instructor manual, and test banks.
Algorithmic recommendation systems (ARM) on dating apps serve users with a personalised feed of profiles from other users based on the inferred preferences of the user being served. Despite concerns linking ARM to problematic dating app use and negative social outcomes, it has been suggested that critical awareness of ARM's limitations, such as that ARM restrict user choice (i.e. a ‘confining’ perception of ARM, or CP-ARM), can mitigate problematic usage and reduce negative social outcomes. This study tested such a prediction with semi-structured interviews (N = 20) and a subsequent survey (N = 349), which yielded surprising results – while CP-ARM can indirectly decrease compulsive use of dating apps by lowering the perceived usefulness of dating apps, it can directly increase compulsive use, which can be attributed to a sense of helplessness in controlling digital media use. Consequently, compulsive use can decrease the intention to commit in Internet-initiated romantic relationships. The finding suggests that researchers should not assume that critical awareness of algorithms leads to less problematic usage and better social outcomes but situate the inquiries in a broader socio-cultural context where everyday life is increasingly mediatised by various social platforms and individuals find it difficult to opt out.
With the development of technology, smartphones and the various applications in them have become a part of people's lives. Individuals can get information using their smartphones, shop, and even socialize with mobile applications and search for a partner with whom they can establish romantic intimacy. The aim of this study is to take a closer look to the mobile dating application use and to investigate what kind of changes these applications cause in the romantic partner choices of individuals and to investigate the common characteristics of people who use these applications; the motivation of using these applications and the results caused by the use of mobile dating applications. The researches on the subject of the study were subjected to analysis and synthesis processes. The method used in the research is meta-analysis. Meta-analysis is a method that aims to reach a synthesis from this result by examining the researches made on a specific subject (Büyüköztürk, Çakmak, Akgün, Karadeniz, Demirel 2019: 241). The data of this study consists of research on mobile dating applications and romantic relationships. These studies were obtained by searching the keywords "mobile dating apps", "tinder", "online dating" from various databases and the results were included in the study. During the search, few studies on these practices were found in Turkey. In the study, studies conducted outside of Turkey are predominantly. This can be counted among the limitations of the study. As a result of the research, it has been seen that individuals increasingly use these applications to socialize in today's world, and with the change of technology, the culture and accordingly the ways of establishing close relationships of individuals have also changed. Key words: mobile dating, tinder, mobil applications, online dating, ockupid
Geo-social networking applications (GSNAs) like Tinder and Grindr are popular tools for connecting with people for romance, sex, and other purposes, particularly among sexual minorities. This paper draws on narrative interviews with 13 bisexual persons (5 cisgender men, 6 cisgender women, 2 trans/nonbinary persons) to explore their GSNA use, including motives and gratifications, relational dynamics, and implications for individual identities and cultural understandings of bisexuality. Participants presented complex and ambivalent accounts of their GSNA use, revealing a variety of relational aspirations and experiences. Whatever users’ goals, cultural meanings associated with bisexuality shaped online interactions in ways that impeded their fulfillment, with binegativity routinely preventing relationship formation in the first instance or precipitating relationship dissolution. Despite these challenges, bisexual persons regularly have successful digitally-mediated encounters which can reshape private and collective understandings of bisexuality. GSNAs expose users to new experiences and discourses that help them make sense of their erotic predilections, including partner sex/gender sexuality. They may also play a role in the broader sea change in attitudes toward bisexuality by facilitating the formation of mixed orientation relationships wherein stereotypes are gradually replaced by direct personal experience.
In online dating platforms, users tend to focus their attention on a subset of popular peers, leading to congestion. We consider the potential efficacy of an informational intervention, namely, the disclosure of peers’ recent demand. We evaluate our treatment’s efficacy in mitigating congestion and improving matching efficiency, conducting a randomized field experiment at a large mobile dating platform. Our results show that the intervention is particularly effective at improving matching efficiency when presented in tandem with a textual message-framing cue that highlights the capacity implications of the peer demand information. Heterogeneity analyses further indicate that these effects are driven primarily by those users who most contend with congestion in the form of competition, namely, male users and those who rely more heavily upon outbound messages for matches.
Previous research has found that for men, activating a mating motive increases luxury consumption as a way to attract a romantic partner. However, little is known about the role of luxury consumption in women’s romantic endeavors. The present research conceptualizes a mate screening motive which explains how women use luxury consumption to romantically signal to men. Six studies and two follow-ups conducted in controlled and field settings show that the mate screening motive boosts women’s consumption of luxury goods as a way to signal their mating standards to men and thereby deter undesirable pursuers. The effect is diminished when mate screening is less necessary such as when external screening tools are available (e.g., screening filters on dating websites), the quality of potential mates is high, and the focus is on selecting a desirable partner rather than deterring undesirable pursuers. The findings have important implications for understanding how consumers use products and brands in romantic relationships, and for designing marketing strategies and communication for luxury brands, commercial dating services, and dating apps. Our findings also provide insights for consumers on how to use brands and products as effective communication devices in romantic endeavors.
Studies showed adverse psychological effects related to the use of dating applications such as Tinder. However, it remains unclear by which mechanism and in which conditions dating app use has undesired effects. As a mechanism, we investigated excessive swiping, operationalized as youth’s mental preoccupation with profile browsing and swiping compulsivity. As moderators, we investigated swiping in assessment (i.e., critically evaluating profiles), and locomotion (i.e., taking intuitive gut decisions) modes. To this end, we surveyed a quota-sample of 464 transition age dating app users (16–25 years old). Moderated mediation analyses showed that dating app use was associated with excessive swiping, which was in turn associated with a) upward social comparison, b) fear of being single, and c) partner choice overload. In conclusion, frequent dating app use related to undesired outcomes when it was related to excessive swiping. Neither assessment, nor locomotion mode moderated these relationships; thus, excessive swiping is detrimental for young dating app users’ well-being, no matter how they swipe.
This study sought to examine the potential role of news avoidance in belief in COVID-19 misinformation. Using two-wave panel survey data in Singapore, we found that information overload is associated with news fatigue as well as with difficulty in analyzing information. News fatigue and analysis paralysis also subsequently led to news avoidance, which increased belief in COVID-19 misinformation. However, this link is present only among those who are frequently exposed to misinformation about COVID-19.
This article reviews evidence for the social compensation hypothesis of online dating, according to which individuals who experience challenges with traditional dating gravitate towards and benefit from online dating. Three categories of psychosocial vulnerabilities that interfere with the initiation of romantic relationships are identified: 1) internalizing symptoms (i.e., anxiety, depression); 2) rejection sensitivity; and 3) attachment insecurity (i.e., anxiety, avoidance). The literature shows positive associations between anxiety, depression, rejection sensitivity, and attachment anxiety (but not avoidance) and online dating use. But significant lacunae exist in understanding the relational and wellbeing outcomes experienced by individuals with psychosocial vulnerabilities, or of the mechanism through which these vulnerabilities cause enhanced use of online dating. A detailed agenda for future research is proposed.
Societal changes over recent decades have drastically transformed the frequency and manner in which people are exposed to attractive alternative relationship partners, arguably resulting in such alternatives posing a greater threat to committed relationships now than ever before. Yet despite a growing need for novel research on attractive alternatives, research on this topic has failed to account for such changes and thus is growing stagnant. Specifically, although interdependence perspectives and supporting research have consistently and robustly demonstrated that (a) attractive alternatives threaten committed relationships and (b) committed partners protect their relationships by devaluing such alternatives, research has yet to examine how the changing nature of attractive alternatives might affect these processes. To this end, the present article first reviews foundational theory and research that guided the study of attractive alternatives and then highlights how recent societal changes (e.g., technology that increases access to attractive alternatives, increasingly diverse relationship types, the emerging desire to remain single) diverge from this research and thus warrant new directions. We encourage researchers to expand how they study attractive alternatives and to ultimately reignite research on this increasingly important topic.
In Western nations, the simultaneous increase in interracial relationships and the use of dating apps such as Tinder has raised questions regarding the influence of dating apps on partner choice. This study examines whether principles of assortative mating – people's tendency to select partners similar to them – apply to dating apps, or whether the reduced cue environment used on these apps leads users to choose more heterogeneous partners. Young (age <28) Dutch participants (N = 522) used a mock dating app in which potential partners were either White or non-White, relatively low or high educated, and possessing an ethnically Dutch or non-Dutch name. Results pointed to educational assortativity for higher-educated participants and indicated that profile pictures, rather than names, influenced the choice of a White target for participants with a Dutch family background.
Although online dating allows us to access a wider pool of romantic partners, choice could induce an ‘assessment mindset’, orienting us toward ‘optimal’ or alternative partners and undermining our willingness to commit or remain committed to someone. Contextual changes in judgements of facial attractiveness can shed light on this issue. We directly test this proposal by activating a context where participants imagine choosing between items in picture slideshows (dates or equally attractive desserts), observing its effects on attraction to i) faces on second viewing and ii) novel versus familiar identities. Single women, relative to single men, were less attracted to the same face on second viewing (Experiments 2 and 4), with this sex difference only observed after imagining not ‘matching’ with any romantic dates in our slideshow (i.e., low choice, Experiment 4). No equivalent sex differences were observed in the absence of experimental choice slideshows (Experiment 3), and these effects (Experiment 2) were not moderated by slideshow content (romantic dates or desserts) or choice set size (five versus fifteen items). Following slideshows, novel faces were more attractive than familiar faces (Experiment 1), with this effect stronger in men than in women (Experiment 2), and stronger across both sexes after imagining ‘matching’ with desired romantic dates (i.e., high choice, Experiment 4). Our findings suggest that familiarity does not necessarily ‘breed liking’ when we have the autonomy to choose, revealing lower-order socio-cognitive mechanisms that could underpin online interactions, such as when browsing profiles and deciding how to allocate effort to different users.
Will experience with direct democracy influence men's and women's political beliefs differently? Despite the closed gender gap in voter turnout, women remain less interested in politics and participate less frequently in non-voting activities than men. Scholars find women's lower sense of internal political efficacy as the origins of these gender gaps. In this paper, I examine whether the experience of direct participation in political decision-making alters women's feelings of internal political efficacy differently from it does men's. Building on the insights from the literature on the gendered psychological traits, I theorize that voting in referendums will promote men's internal political efficacy but not women's, because of women's greater susceptibility to the psychological costs of participation in referendums. Using an original panel survey conducted shortly before and after the 2018 abortion referendum in Ireland, I demonstrate the presence of the gendered effect in voting in referendums: While men reported increased internal political efficacy after voting in the referendum, women did not experience any meaningful change, even though the issue magnified women's psychological engagement with the vote. My findings suggest that differences in psychological dispositions between men and women create gendered reactions to citizen experience in the political arena.
In the service sector, digital platforms now enable service providers to reach customers through an online marketplace and use the value‐adding complementary services offered. However, despite the widespread prevalence of digital platforms, there has been little research on the market reach and financial performance captured by service providers. We explored these service provider‐specific outcomes of digital platforms by studying a digital platform in the beauty industry. Our results show that digital platforms present a troubling paradox for service providers participating in a platform‐based online marketplace: despite increases in market reach, in terms of a higher rate of new customer acquisition, those service providers participating in the marketplace have lower sales than others. However, the “dark side” of this paradox is compensated by higher sales for service providers using more of the complementary services offered by the platform. Hence, although digital platforms may open new markets and add value, service providers should be wary of their paradoxical consequences. With these findings, we contribute new theoretical and managerial insight about the service provider‐specific outcomes of digital platforms and add to the ongoing debate about firm strategies in the digital age concerning the platform economy.
A small cottage industry emerging within the larger gig economy is online dating assistant (ODA) companies that allow paying clients to outsource the labor associated with online dating, including profile development, date selection and matching, and even interaction (i.e., ODAs assume their clients’ identities to exchange messages with other [unsuspecting] daters to secure face-to-face dates). The newness of this industry presents an opportunity to investigate the lived experience of remote employees working in an up-and-coming virtual organization. Through interviews with six ODAs, we explored motivations, day-to-day workflow, and development of work identities. Analysis uncovered unique challenges ODAs faced when performing the “human-based” tasks of online dating, which differed starkly from other popular services being bought and sold in the gig economy (e.g., rideshare, food delivery). Findings also show how ODAs engage in pragmatic and critical sensemaking as they navigate the specific challenges associated with ODA labor, and those created by remote work and gig labor, more generally.
Integrating a theory of social change, culture, and human development with earlier theoretical work on media effects, this article explores developmental implications—social, cognitive, and neural—of the march of media through historical time and across geographical space. It draws on studies employing a variety of methods—content analysis, focus group, survey, field, lab, and fMRI experiments. While before‐after comparisons are valuable but rare, there are a number of other research designs that allow us to infer effects of the historical introduction and expansion of a particular communication technology. In this theoretical article, I first present an overview of the theory and then use it to analyze and discuss the effects of three examples of emerging technologies: mobile phones, social networking, and multimedia.
Due to new technologies, a profusion of products is released onto store shelves and the Internet, resulting in a special choice condition termed hyperchoice. Past research on whether hyperchoice deteriorates decision experience is mixed. The present study hypothesizes the experience in the scenario of hyperchoice may be moderated by individual characteristics, including numeracy and age differences. A total of 116 older adults and 112 younger adults were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Along with the Rasch-based numeracy scale, each participant completed a consumer and a gamble choice task. In both tasks, the number of options being presented to participants was manipulated to create a hyperchoice condition (sixteen options) and a simple-choice condition (four options). Dependent variables were post-choice difficulty and satisfaction. Multiple regressions were performed with SPSS 24.0 to test the hypothesis. As a result, hyperchoice was related to greater decision difficulty in both choice tasks. Moreover, there was an interaction between numeracy and hyperchoice in the gamble task. Specifically, whereas higher numerate participants' experienced difficulty and satisfaction were relatively stable between the two choice conditions, lower numerate participants experienced more difficulty and dissatisfaction in the hyperchoice condition than in the simple-choice condition. Additionally, compared to younger adults, older adults reported greater decision difficulty and lower decision satisfaction, regardless of choice condition. The study supported the notion that the specific effect of hyperchoice was moderated by individual factors. The study implied merchants should adopt strategies to ease decision experience and advocated for numeracy education.
Information and communication technologies have introduced profound changes to how individuals pursue sexual and romantic connections. One class of communication technologies that has become especially popular in recent times is that of geosocial networking apps, which characteristically use smartphones’ global positioning system technology to transmit and receive users’ location data. To date, however, most research investigating the impact of internet-mediated communication on socio-sexual relations has focused on more established systems like chat rooms, social networking sites, email, and instant messaging. The present study thematically analyzes interview data from gay, bisexual and queer men to explore how geosocial networking apps influence the development and organization of intimate relationships. Our findings reveal a simultaneous entrenching and subversion of traditional understandings of intimacy shaped by the heteronormative model of lifelong, monogamous marriage, which undercuts attempts by grand theory to paint contemporary intimate relationships in broad strokes as being either in a state of radical democratization or moral decline. Such cultural contestation, we argue, should be taken as a starting point in future research attempting to faithfully capture the complex and tentative transformations occurring with love and sex in the digital age.
The hyperperception model was used to identify the importance of Facebook users knowing their romantic partner's Facebook friends in predicting romantic jealousy. A cross-sectional survey (N = 615) found that surveillance of romantic partners, knowing fewer of the partner's Facebook friends, and frequent interactions between the partner and unknown but not known friends on Facebook were all associated with romantic jealousy, which was in turn associated with a greater intention of leaving one's romantic partner. The data was also consistent with good fit for a path model integrating these bivariate relationships.
Online dating brings together strangers in an environment which often lacks real-time physical cues.This inexistence of a shared physical context gives people the opportunity to take advantage of the existing anonymity in online dating platforms and to claim identities as they like. The link between the online and offline identity is addressed by the warranting principle. Whilst in offline dating people generally have an unquestioned and unambiguous warrant between the presented identity and the tangible body’s self,
this is not the case in online dating. The question arises whether such a warrant could potentially be generated in online dating platforms. Inspired by online shopping environments, the idea of adding reputation information as a warrant has recently been implemented in online dating apps (e.g., Do I Date and Once). However, the effects have not yet been investigated. Consequently, this research aims to investigate whether adding third-party reputation information to an online dating profile could potentially serve as a warrant for online daters and could impact their perceived trustworthiness and their chances to go on an offline date.
This book is available via: https://networkcultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/It_Happened_on_Tinder_small.pdf
For hundreds of thousands of years, humans only communicated in person, but in just the past fifty years they have started also communicating online. Today, people communicate more online than offline. What does this shift mean for human social life? We identify four structural differences between online (versus offline) interaction: (1) fewer nonverbal cues, (2) greater anonymity, (3) more opportunity to form new social ties and bolster weak ties, and (4) wider dissemination of information. Each of these differences underlies systematic psychological and behavioral consequences. Online and offline lives often intersect; we thus further review how online engagement can (1) disrupt or (2) enhance offline interaction. This work provides a useful framework for studying the influence of technology on social life (119/120).
Counter-terrorism measures are often described as pre-emptive, punitive, and afford authorities exclusive and expanded powers. Yet they continue to attract public support. Why is this the case? A consistent finding in traditional crime control research shows a link between perceived threat from racial or ethnic minority groups and their perceived involvement in crime. This perceived relationship results in public support for punitive crime control measures for such groups. Similar connections can be made between terrorism and Muslims. It is thus possible that perceiving Muslims to be threatening may help explain enhanced public support towards harsh counter-terrorism measures. This study draws on survey data of a national sample Australian residents (N = 1199) to test this hypothesis. Findings show the importance of both identity processes and perceptions of Muslims as threatening in shaping support for punitive counter-terrorism strategies. Results also demonstrate how social identity can moderate the effect of perceived threat on support for such strategies. Theoretical and policy implications of this study are outlined.
Meta-theoretical focus is given to how communication researchers are approaching and hypothesizing moderation. A moderation typology is offered and an evaluation of the field’s common practices for positing moderation reveals an inability to discern between three overarching classifications (Contributory, Contingent, Cleaved). A content analysis of eight communication journals reveals moderation hypotheses lacking a level of precision that can best aid the field’s knowledge generation. In addition, vague hypothesizing is leaving communication researchers vulnerable to the commitment of Type III error (i.e., correctly rejecting a null hypothesis for the wrong reason). Recommendations are provided in an effort to improve the field’s conceptualization and presentation of moderation.
This research addresses three important issues regarding interpersonal expectancy effects and communication across various modalities. The phenomena of behavioral confirmation and disconfirmation were tested in an original experiment involving 148 participants using computer-mediated communication (CMC). First, this study tested a boundary condition asserted by previous theorists about whether or not confirmation and disconfirmation could occur in communication channels without nonverbal communication. Secondly, it shed light on an important causal variable of perceived malleability of interpersonal expectancies in a novel, simultaneous test of confirmation and disconfirmation. Lastly, it verified the hyperpersonal model of CMC by demonstrating behavioral confirmation, and extended the model by specifying when disconfirmation occurs online.
An ex post facto field study investigated state anxiety as a measure of the magnitude of postpurchase dissonance. Purchase conditions which should produce varying levels of postpurchase dissonance were found to have a predicted effect on a validated measure of state anxiety. Implications for aspects of marketing strategy and application to the study of consumer behavior are highlighted.
Abstract Previous studies that compared differences in the outcomes of relationships that begin online compared to traditional offline venues have primarily looked at marital relationships. The present study extends this investigation by including non-marital relationships in the comparison. It further investigates if the breakup rate of relationships (both marital and non-marital) varies as a result of meeting online versus offline, and if other factors outside of the meeting venue predict relationship dissolution. Data are used from Waves I, II, and III of a nationally representative survey of 4,002 respondents. Results suggest that couples who met their partners online were more likely to be involved in dating and romantic relationships than marital relationships compared to couples who met offline. Furthermore, the breakup rates for both marital and non-marital romantic relationships was found to be higher for couples who met online than couples who met through offline venues. In addition to meeting venue, relationship quality and duration of relationship were found to be significant factors that predicted if couples would stay together or break up. Evidence drawn from theory and previous research are used to explain these observed trends.
People generally prefer to have the opportunity to revise their decisions. Surprisingly however, research has shown that keeping one's options open yields lower satisfaction with the decision outcome (Gilbert & Ebert, 2002). Two studies aimed to gain more insight into the detrimental consequences of decision reversibility and the cognitive processes underlying decision reversibility. Building upon literature on goal fulfillment we hypothesized and found in a first experiment that as long as decisions are still open to change, accessibility of decision-related constructs is increased compared to neutral constructs. A second experiment demonstrated that decision reversibility undermines working memory capacity. Moreover participants experienced higher regret after having made a reversible decision, an effect that was mediated by decreased working memory capacity. The study set implies that reversible decisions yield lower working memory capacity because people continue to think about the, still relevant, choice options. In the end this might increase dissatisfaction with the decision and regret.
Contrary to popular belief many choice options and the ability to reverse one's initial choice are sometimes associated with decreased chooser satisfaction. Two studies investigated the role of counterfactual thinking in explaining these paradoxes. Participants chose drawing implements from either a limited (6) or extensive (24) choice set (Study 1), or an expected reversible/non-reversible selection (Study 2). Following a drawing task, satisfaction with their chosen implement was rated under either high or low cognitive load to manipulate the availability of counterfactual alternatives. In Study 1 satisfaction was higher with limited vs. extensive choice under low load. The number of counterfactuals generated mediated this effect. Under high load the pattern was reversed. Participants in Study 2 generated more counterfactuals when reversibility was expected under low but not high load and this partially mediated the impact of expected reversibility on revealed satisfaction. Implications for theoretical understanding of these paradoxes are discussed.
Abstract The present study examines the stigma associated with online relationship initiation and its relation to women's self-protective behavior. Self-protective behaviors are those an individual engages in to avoid becoming a victim of dating violence. Female participants from a Midwestern university (N=82) were asked to read scenarios describing a hypothetical date. In one scenario, the prospective date was only previously known through an online social networking site, while in the other scenario, the date was previously known through brief face-to-face interaction. After reading the scenario, participants rated the importance of engaging in self-protection behaviors if they were in the date situation being described. As we predicted, participants assigned greater importance to self-protective behavior after reading the online meeting scenario than the face-to-face scenario. This tendency was especially strong among participants who had never been on a date with someone they had met online.
This article asks whether, and when, participants benefit from seeing each other's faces in computer-mediated communication. Although new technologies make it relatively easy to exchange images over the Internet, our formal understanding of their impacts is not clear. Some theories suggest that the more one can see of one's partners, the better one will like them. Others suggest that long-term virtual team members may like each other better than would those who use face-to-face interaction. The dynamic underlying this latter effect may also pertain to the presentation of realistic images compared with idealized virtual perceptions. A field experiment evaluated the timing of physical image presentations for members of short-term and long-term virtual, international groups. Results indicate that in new, unacquainted teams, seeing one's partner promotes affection and social attraction, but in long-term online groups, the same type of photograph dampens affinity.
The current literature describes a number of mechanisms by which self-esteem is affected and regulated. Using exemplars from three different families of such mechanisms—cognitive consistency, social comparison, and value expression—the three studies reported here (in addition to others in the literature) indicate that these qualitatively different mechanisms are not independent of one another. The evidence is interpreted as showing the unitary nature of self-esteem regulation and that individuals tend to be satisficers rather than maximizers regarding self-esteem.
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.
In this manuscript we explore the ways in which the marketplace metaphor resonates with online dating participants and how this conceptual framework influences how they assess themselves, assess others, and make decisions about whom to pursue. Taking a metaphor approach enables us to highlight the ways in which participants’ language shapes their self-concept and interactions with potential partners. Qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with 34 participants from a large online dating site revealed that the marketplace metaphor was salient for participants, who employed several strategies that reflected the assumptions underlying the marketplace perspective (including resisting the metaphor). We explore the implications of this metaphor for romantic relationship development, such as the objectification of potential partners.
Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself. Thaler and Sunstein invite us to enter an alternative world, one that takes our humanness as a given. They show that by knowing how people think, we can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society. Using colorful examples from the most important aspects of life, Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how thoughtful "choice architecture" can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice. Nudge offers a unique new take-from neither the left nor the right-on many hot-button issues, for individuals and governments alike. This is one of the most engaging and provocative books to come along in many years. © 2008 by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein. All rights reserved.
Research on choice over time has found that people tend to focus on concrete aspects of near-future events and abstract aspects of distantfuture events. Furthermore, a focus on concrete aspects heightens the feasibility-related components, whereas a focus on abstract aspects heightens the desirability-related components, which can lead to preference inconsistency over time. In this research, the authors integrate research on choice over time with mental simulation. They propose and show that counter to people’s natural tendencies, outcome simulation for near-future events and process simulation for distant-future events lead to preference consistency over time. The results also suggest that outcome timing moderates the effectiveness of process versus outcome simulation.
This study tested Rusbult’s (1980, 1983) investment model of relationship commitment and stability using data from both partners
of 3,627 married couples. As pre-dicted, spouses’ satisfaction, investments, and quality of alternatives were unique predictors
of their commitment to the marital relationship. Additionally, commitment assessed at the initial testing predicted marital
termination or stability 18 months later. Multiple-group path analyses showed that the investment model provided an adequate
fit to the data and that the associations among variables were similar for husbands and wives. Limitations of the model as
well as directions for future research are consid-ered.
Even though people are attracted by large, high quality recommendation sets, psychological research on choice overload shows that choosing an item from recommendation sets containing many attractive items can be a very difficult task. A web-based user experiment using a matrix factorization algorithm applied to the MovieLens dataset was used to investigate the effect of recommendation set size (5 or 20 items) and set quality (low or high) on perceived variety, recommendation set attractiveness, choice difficulty and satisfaction with the chosen item. The results show that larger sets containing only good items do not necessarily result in higher choice satisfaction compared to smaller sets, as the increased recommendation set attractiveness is counteracted by the increased difficulty of choosing from these sets. These findings were supported by behavioral measurements revealing intensified information search and increased acquisition times for these large attractive sets. Important implications of these findings for the design of recommender system user interfaces will be discussed.
A central feature of the online social networking system, Facebook, is the connection to and links among friends. The sum of the number of one's friends is a feature displayed on users' profiles as a vestige of the friend connections a user has accrued. In contrast to offline social networks, individuals in online network systems frequently accrue friends numbering several hundred. The uncertain meaning of friend status in these systems raises questions about whether and how sociometric popularity conveys attractiveness in non-traditional, non-linear ways. An experiment examined the relationship between the number of friends a Facebook profile featured and observers' ratings of attractiveness and extraversion. A curvilinear effect of sociometric popularity and social attractiveness emerged, as did a quartic relationship between friend count and perceived extraversion. These results suggest that an overabundance of friend connections raises doubts about Facebook users' popularity and desirability.
This experiment examines how far extraversion of the target (self-generated information), extraversion of the target's friends (friends-generated information), and number of friends (system-generated information) influence the perceived popularity, communal orientation, and social attractiveness of the target. The warranting principle states that judgments rely more heavily on other-generated than self-generated information because the former is more immune to manipulation. It is argued that the warranting principle becomes more important when more interpersonal traits have to be judged. In line with the expectations, other-generated information had only weak impact on the popularity judgments. With regard to communal orientation, other-generated information had stronger effects and qualified the effects of self-generated information. Only other-generated information had an impact on perceived social attraction.
This study investigates self-presentation strategies among online dating participants, exploring how participants manage their online presentation of self in order to accomplish the goal of finding a romantic partner. Thirty-four individuals active on a large online dating site participated in telephone interviews about their online dating experiences and perceptions. Qualitative data analysis suggests that participants attended to small cues online, mediated the tension between impression management pressures and the desire to present an authentic sense of self through tactics such as creating a profile that reflected their “ideal self,” and attempted to establish the veracity of their identity claims. This study provides empirical support for Social Information Processing theory in a naturalistic context while offering insight into the complicated way in which “honesty” is enacted online.
Three studies explored how the traits that people ideally desire in a romantic partner, or ideal partner preferences, intersect with the process of romantic relationship initiation and maintenance. Two attraction experiments in the laboratory found that, when participants evaluated a potential romantic partner's written profile, they expressed more romantic interest in a partner whose traits were manipulated to match (vs. mismatch) their idiosyncratic ideals. However, after a live interaction with the partner, the match vs. mismatch manipulation was no longer associated with romantic interest. This pattern appeared to have emerged because participants reinterpreted the meaning of the traits as they applied to the partner, a context effect predicted by classic models of person perception (S. E. Asch, 1946). Finally, a longitudinal study of middle-aged adults demonstrated that participants evaluated a current romantic partner (but not a partner who was merely desired) more positively to the extent that the partner matched their overall pattern of ideals across several traits; the match in level of ideals (i.e., high vs. low ratings) was not relevant to participants' evaluations. In general, the match between ideals and a partner's traits may predict relational outcomes when participants are learning about a partner in the abstract and when they are actually in a relationship with the partner, but not when considering potential dating partners they have met in person.
Although innumerable songs, poems, plays and movies have been written about adolescent romantic relationships, no scientific book has been written on that topic. Numerous volumes exist on adult romantic relationships and on adolescent sexuality, but this volume, first published in 2000, was the first to examine adolescent romantic relationships. A group of eminent investigators met to discuss the topic and were charged with the task of writing about their conceptualization of these relationships and of romantic experiences in adolescence. The papers cover the full range of aspects of romantic relationships, and examine general processes and individual differences within the general context of adolescent development. Each paper contains numerous provocative ideas that are designed to stimulate research on the topic.
People prefer to make changeable decisions rather than unchangeable decisions because they do not realize that they may be more satisfied with the latter. Photography students believed that having the opportunity to change their minds about which prints to keep would not influence their liking of the prints. However, those who had the opportunity to change their minds liked their prints less than those who did not (Study 1). Although the opportunity to change their minds impaired the postdecisional processes that normally promote satisfaction (Study 2a), most participants wanted to have that opportunity (Study 2b). The results demonstrate that errors in affective forecasting can lead people to behave in ways that do not optimize their happiness and well-being.
Gender is obviously a key component for understanding romantic relationships in adolescence. If we listen to the narratives of high school seniors describing particular romantic relationships, our assumptions about expected sex-role-appropriate behavior or constructions may be violated or confirmed. Person 1: “Um, we're both very easygoing. Um, we like a lot of affection. Um, not like public affection, but um, just knowing that we, we care for each other. Um, uh, it doesn't even have to be physical affection, just any type. We like cuddling with each other. Um, we enjoy going out and doing things with each other and each other's friends. … We enjoy high action things together. Um, pretty much … we have a very open relationship, and we can talk about anything.” Person 2: “I think after a while like, [person] following me around and wanting to be with me all the time, and maybe the fact that I had a lot to say and had the power … I'd, just like, I don't know, I still think like that. I don't know why but [person] … was getting too serious by following me around all the time and, you know, wanting to spend every minute of the day.
Choice is what enables each person to pursue precisely those objects and activities that best satisfy his or her own preferences within the limits of his or her resources. This chapter argues that choice, and with it freedom, autonomy, and self-determination, can become excessive, and that when that happens, freedom can be experienced as a kind of misery-inducing tyranny. Though one cannot be free without choice, it is arguable that choice-induced paralysis is a sign of diminished rather than enhanced freedom. Though policy initiatives can operate to minimize the negative effects of choice overload, they contain the danger that they will simultaneously undermine the positive effects of freedom of choice. The reason people can say anything and be understood is that they cannot say anything in any way they want. It is linguistic constraint, in the form of these rules, that makes linguistic freedom possible.
This article asks whether, and when, participants benefit from seeing each other's faces in computer-mediated communication. Although new technologies make it relatively easy to exchange images over the Internet, our formal understanding of their impacts is not clear. Some theories suggest that the more one can see of one's partners, the better one will like them. Others suggest that long-term virtual team members may like each other better than would those who use face-to-face interaction. The dynamic underlying this latter effect may also pertain to the presentation of realistic images compared with idealized virtual perceptions. A field experiment evaluated the timing of physical image presentations for members of short-term and long-term virtual, international groups. Results indicate that in new, unacquainted teams, seeing one's partner promotes affection and social attraction, but in long-term online groups, the same type of photograph dampens affinity.
Used a longitudinal study of heterosexual dating relationships to test investment model predictions regarding the process by which satisfaction and commitment develop (or deteriorate) over time. Initially, 17 male and 17 female undergraduates, each of whom was involved in a heterosexual relationship of 0-8 wks duration, participated. Four Ss dropped out, and 10 Ss' relationships ended. Questionnaires were completed by Ss every 17 days. Increases over time in rewards led to corresponding increases in satisfaction, whereas variations in costs did not significantly affect satisfaction. Commitment increased because of increases in satisfaction, declines in the quality of available alternatives, and increases in investment size. Greater rewards also promoted increases in commitment to maintain relationships, whereas changes in costs generally had no impact on commitment. For stayers, rewards increased, costs rose slightly, satisfaction grew, alternative quality declined, investment size increased, and commitment grew; for leavers the reverse occurred. Ss whose partners ended their relationships evidenced entrapment: They showed relatively low increases in satisfaction, but their alternatives declined in quality and they continued to invest heavily in their relationships. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
In this study we examined how support from parents and friends for the romantic relationships of young adults affects the quality of their relationships and the likelihood that their relationships break up over time. Data were gathered over 2 years from a group of romantic couples. Support was found for the positive effect of network support on the quality of the relationship in both cross-sectional and panel analyses. Hazard analyses showed that the female partner's perceived network support increased the stability of the relationships. No evidence was found for the Romeo and Juliet effect.
The repeated measurement study confirms the presumption that cognitive dissonance is detrimental to satisfaction also in a low-priced context. However, the development of dissonance over time is complex and does not seem to follow a uniform pattern. While higher levels of dissonance decrease over time, smaller levels persist or even increase. One possible explanation for the observed heterogeneous development assumes that stronger dissonance motivates the consumer more intensely to undertake efforts to reduce dissonance, while smaller levels of dissonance are not as effective and, consequently, dissonance may grow over time. Alternatively, a small level of dissonance at the time of purchase may reflect severe uncertainty even before the purchase. Companies are advised, after as well as prior to the purchase, to assist the customer in abating feelings of dissonance and uncertainty, even if they appear to be minor. The fact that satisfaction and loyalty are highest when dissonance can be avoided altogether, further demonstrates the importance of the concept of dissonance as an explanatory construct in consumer behaviour.
People generally say they prefer to have the opportunity to revise decisions at a later point in time. Research has shown, however, that reversible decision-making leads to lower as opposed to higher levels of post-choice satisfaction (Gilbert & Ebert, 2002). In three studies we aimed to gain insight into the underlying processes driving this counterintuitive finding. Our results show that irreversible decision-making increases the accessibility of the positive aspects of the chosen and the negative aspects of the rejected alternatives. Hence, in line with what would be expected on the basis of cognitive dissonance theory, irreversible decision-making results in a focus on aspects of the decision that optimize choice satisfaction. After reversible decision-making, however, the negative aspects of the chosen and the positive aspects of the rejected alternatives tend to become relatively more accessible. Apparently, reversible decisions automatically direct people's attention to those aspects of the decision that potentially decrease satisfaction with the chosen alternative.
Online dating sites frequently claim that they have fundamentally altered the dating landscape for the better. This article employs psychological science to examine (a) whether online dating is fundamentally different from conventional offline dating and (b) whether online dating promotes better romantic outcomes than conventional offline dating. The answer to the first question (uniqueness) is yes, and the answer to the second question (superiority) is yes and no. To understand how online dating fundamentally differs from conventional offline dating and the circumstances under which online dating promotes better romantic outcomes than conventional offline dating, we consider the three major services online dating sites offer: access, communication, and matching. Access refers to users' exposure to and opportunity to evaluate potential romantic partners they are otherwise unlikely to encounter. Communication refers to users' opportunity to use various forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to interact with specific potential partners through the dating site before meeting face-to-face. Matching refers to a site's use of a mathematical algorithm to select potential partners for users. Regarding the uniqueness question, the ways in which online dating sites implement these three services have indeed fundamentally altered the dating landscape. In particular, online dating, which has rapidly become a pervasive means of seeking potential partners, has altered both the romantic acquaintance process and the compatibility matching process. For example, rather than meeting potential partners, getting a snapshot impression of how well one interacts with them, and then slowly learning various facts about them, online dating typically involves learning a broad range of facts about potential partners before deciding whether one wants to meet them in person. Rather than relying on the intuition of village elders, family members, or friends or to select which pairs of unacquainted singles will be especially compatible, certain forms of online dating involve placing one's romantic fate in the hands of a mathematical matching algorithm. Turning to the superiority question, online dating has important advantages over conventional offline dating. For example, it offers unprecedented (and remarkably convenient) levels of access to potential partners, which is especially helpful for singles who might otherwise lack such access. It also allows online daters to use CMC to garner an initial sense of their compatibility with potential partners before deciding whether to meet them face-to-face. In addition, certain dating sites may be able to collect data that allow them to banish from the dating pool people who are likely to be poor relationship partners in general. On the other hand, the ways online dating sites typically implement the services of access, communication, and matching do not always improve romantic outcomes; indeed, they sometimes undermine such outcomes. Regarding access, encountering potential partners via online dating profiles reduces three-dimensional people to two-dimensional displays of information, and these displays fail to capture those experiential aspects of social interaction that are essential to evaluating one's compatibility with potential partners. In addition, the ready access to a large pool of potential partners can elicit an evaluative, assessment-oriented mindset that leads online daters to objectify potential partners and might even undermine their willingness to commit to one of them. It can also cause people to make lazy, ill-advised decisions when selecting among the large array of potential partners. Regarding communication, although online daters can benefit from having short-term CMC with potential partners before meeting them face-to-face, longer periods of CMC prior to a face-to-face meeting may actually hurt people's romantic prospects. In particular, people tend to overinterpret the social cues available in CMC, and if CMC proceeds unabated without a face-to-face reality check, subsequent face-to-face meetings can produce unpleasant expectancy violations. As CMC lacks the experiential richness of a face-to-face encounter, some important information about potential partners is impossible to glean from CMC alone; most users will want to meet a potential partner in person to integrate their CMC and face-to-face impressions into a coherent whole before pursuing a romantic relationship. Regarding matching, no compelling evidence supports matching sites' claims that mathematical algorithms work-that they foster romantic outcomes that are superior to those fostered by other means of pairing partners. Part of the problem is that matching sites build their mathematical algorithms around principles-typically similarity but also complementarity-that are much less important to relationship well-being than has long been assumed. In addition, these sites are in a poor position to know how the two partners will grow and mature over time, what life circumstances they will confront and coping responses they will exhibit in the future, and how the dynamics of their interaction will ultimately promote or undermine romantic attraction and long-term relationship well-being. As such, it is unlikely that any matching algorithm that seeks to match two people based on information available before they are aware of each other can account for more than a very small proportion of the variance in long-term romantic outcomes, such as relationship satisfaction and stability. In short, online dating has radically altered the dating landscape since its inception 15 to 20 years ago. Some of the changes have improved romantic outcomes, but many have not. We conclude by (a) discussing the implications of online dating for how people think about romantic relationships and for homogamy (similarity of partners) in marriage and (b) offering recommendations for policymakers and for singles seeking to make the most out of their online dating endeavors.
The present experiment determined whether preference for consonant or dissonant information differs when (a) decisions are reversible instead of irreversible, and (b) when different amounts of dissonance are induced. Dissonance was manipulated by having subjects make decisions between alternatives with varying degrees of similarity in attractiveness. Subjects' preference for consonant information was generally stronger after making irreversible decisions than after making reversible ones. When decisions were irreversible, the relative preference for consonant over dissonant information increased with the similarity in attractiveness of the decision alternatives. When decisions were reversible, the relative preference for consonant information decreased with the similarity in attractiveness of the alternatives. In accordance to earlier investigations on selective exposure, experimental manipulation did not affect the avoidance of dissonance information. The results are interpreted in terms of both dissonance theory and choice certainty theory.
Two experiments were designed to test the adequacy of the investment model of developing relationships in predicting satisfaction with and commitment to ongoing associations. According to the investment model, attraction to and satisfaction with a relationship is a function of a comparison of the relationship outcome value (both rewards and costs) to the individual's expectations, or comparison level. Commitment to a relationship is said to be a function not only of the relationship outcome value, but also the quality of the best available alternative and the magnitude of the individual's investment in the relationship. The intrinsic or extrinsic investment of resources serves to increase commitment by increasing the costs of leaving the relationship. Thus, increases in investment size, decreases in alternative value, and increases in relationship value should increase commitment to an ongoing relationship. In Experiment 1, a role-playing study, commitment to relationships increased with intrinsic and extrinsic investment size and decreased with the value of alternatives, but was not appreciably affected by relationship costs. Satisfaction/attraction significantly increased as relationship costs decreased. In Experiment 2, a survey of ongoing romantic associations, satisfaction/attraction was predicted by relationship reward value and relationship cost value. Commitment to relationships increased as relationship reward value and investment size increased and as alternative value and relationship cost value decreased, although the effects of cost value were weak.
In the present experiment subjects made a decision between two alternatives which was either reversible or irreversible. After the choice, subjects evaluated the attractiveness of both alternatives once more under different time levels. It was found that with increasing time level, re-evaluation of alternatives increased under irreversible and decreased under reversible conditions. The results are discussed in the framework of dissonance theory.
People base many decisions on affective forecasts, predictions about their emotional reactions to future events. They often display an impact bias, overestimating the intensity and duration of their emotional reactions to such events. One cause of the impact bias is focalism, the tendency to underestimate the extent to which other events will influence our thoughts and feelings. Another is people's failure to anticipate how quickly they will make sense of things that happen to them in a way that speeds emotional recovery. This is especially true when predicting reactions to negative events: People fail to anticipate how quickly they will cope psychologically with such events in ways that speed their recovery from them. Several implications are discussed, such as the tendency for people to attribute their unexpected resilience to external agents.
Disconfirmation models of customer satisfaction employing three alternative standards of performance were compared by using causal modeling. Pre- and post-measures were obtained from subjects in three different use situations. The disconfirmation paradigm is supported. The analysis suggests that best brand norm and product norm are additional standards used for evaluating focal brand performance.
The use of multiple comparisons in analysis of variance (ANOVA) is discussed. It is argued that experimentwise Type I error rate inflation can be serious and that its influences are often unnoticed in ANOVA applications. Both classical balanced omnibus and orthogonal planned contrast tests inflate experimentwise error to an identifiable maximum. Significance test results are overinterpreted in contemporary analytic practice, and researchers must consider effect sizes and replicability or invariance analyses when formulating interpretations. To guide analytic practice, it is suggested that omnibus hypotheses that are not of interest or which cannot be interpreted should not be tested, since such tests can distort hypothesis tests that are of interest. Orthogonal contrasts should be preferred over non-orthogonal contrasts. The use of planned contrasts is suggested in place of omnibus or unplanned hypothesis tests. Use of planned comparisons tends to result in more thoughtful research with greater power against Type II error. Small data sets and examples support the discussion, and nine tables illustrate these examples. A 73-item list of references is included. (SLD)
Over the past 30 to 40 years, dramatic changes have taken place in our society in adolescents' and young adults' entry into sexuality, marriage, and parenting. The links between sexual activity and marriage began to erode with increased options for contraception, changes in societal norms, and opening up of economic opportunities for women (Alan Guttmacher Institute [AGI], 1994; Furstenberg, 1995, in press; Smith, 1994). Subsequent eroding of the link between the establishment of a stable marriage as a necessary condition of parenting has occurred due to myriad social policies and societal norms on divorce and the support of children (Cherlin, 1988; Furstenberg, 1995). Adolescent and young adult transitions to sexuality, marriage, and childbearing occur in parallel with, although not necessarily as a result of, the development of romantic relationships. In our culture, a prevailing belief is that sexual intimacy is inappropriate if it does not occur in the context of love, and often a legally or religiously sanctioned arrangement (i.e., marriage). However, the strength of this belief varies across historical periods; the dimension of the relationship; and the gender, age, and context of the individuals involved. The timing and co-occurrence or patterning of sex, love, and stable, long-term relationships occur in societal and historical contexts (Elder, 1974, 1985; Hagestad, 1986; Hardy, Astone, Brooks-Gunn, Shapiro, & Miller, 1998; Hareven, 1977).
While the limits of conditions that create dissonance may be greater than those stipulated by Festinger (see
32: 347), just where these limits lie is not yet known. An experiment was designed to reveal whether: (a) a chance event can affect the magnitude of dissonance, and (b) the effect of such a chance event depends upon there having been a prior choice in commitment to the event. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
People are typically thought to be better off with more choices, yet often prefer to choose from few alternatives. By considering the perceived benefits and costs of choice, it is proposed that satisfaction from choice is an inverted U-shaped function of the number of alternatives. This proposition is verified experimentally. It is further hypothesized that differences in cognitive costs affect the relative location of the function's peak. Specifically, since—in large sets—perceptual costs of processing alternatives varying in shape are greater than for alternatives varying in color, the peak of the satisfaction function for the latter will lie to the right of the former. This prediction is also validated. The paper emphasizes the need for an explicit rationale for knowing how much choice is “enough.” © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Scholars have recently begun to harness the immense power of speed-dating procedures to achieve important and novel insights into the dynamics of romantic attraction. Speed-dating procedures allow researchers to study romantic dynamics dyadically, with regard to potentially meaningful relationships, and with strong external validity. This article highlights the strengths and promise of speed-dating procedures, reviews some of their most exciting contributions to our understanding of the social psyche, and illustrates how scholars can employ speed-dating and its straightforward variants to study topics relevant to diverse subfields of psychological science.
daily variations may be understood in terms of the degree to which three basic needs, autonomy, competence, and related-ness, are satisfied in daily activity. Hierarchical linear models were used to examine this hypothesis across 2 weeks of daily activ-ity and well-being reports controlling for trait-level individual differences. Results strongly supported the hypothesis. The authors also examined the social activities that contribute to sat-isfaction of relatedness needs. The best predictors were meaning-ful talk and feeling understood and appreciated by interaction partners. Finally, the authors found systematic day-of-the-week variations in emotional well-being and need satisfaction. These results are discussed in terms of the importance of daily activities and the need to consider both trait and day-level determinants of well-being.
Objective. 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.
Methods. We use multivariate logistic regression to analyze 3,215 respondents from the first nationally representative U.S. survey of Internet dating.
Results. Sociodemographic factors have strong effects on Internet access and single status but weak effects on use of Internet dating services once the sample is conditioned on these factors. For this “at-risk” subpopulation, computer literacy and social networks strongly influence the likelihood of Internet dating.
Conclusions. Internet dating is a common mate selection strategy among the highly selective subpopulation of single Internet users and may continue to grow through social networks. Material and virtual elements of the digital divide have direct and indirect effects on Internet dating.