The Aspects of Online Dating and Mate Preferences

Human journey from hunter gatherers living in jungles to digital beings living in virtual world has been an overwhelming one. However, several of our behaviors, fears etc can still be dated back to our ancestors. The objective of the current study was to see whether mate preferences resulting from parental investment theory as proposed by evolutionary psychology hold true for modern times' online dating as well. The sample (N=60) consisted of young adults who are currently active on the mobile dating app of Tinder and have heterosexual orientation. The study was conducted using online survey method. In the first part of the survey, participants had to rate the extent to which certain factors were important for them to swipe right on a particular profile. In the next part they had to rate how important were given factors for them to continue chatting or to go on an actual date with the person. The factors listed were based on the literature on mate preferences. Five factors were of particular interest - Physical attractiveness, Age, Chastity, Ambitiousness and Financial prospects. Factorial design was used with two independent variables namely gender of the participants- male or female and relationship preference- short term vs. long term. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze participants' demographic data. Further, inferential statistics of factorial ANOVA was used to analyze ratings given by the participants. As hypothesized, there was a significant difference in the ratings given by men and women. The factors preferred in short term vs. long term relationship also showed a significant variation. This study provides a better understanding of human psychological mechanisms in the current digital context and can be applied to several domains.

Introduction

Evolutionary Psychology without a doubt is one of the most interesting branches of psychology that answers many of the intriguing questions about human behavior. Survival and reproduction of the species is deemed to be the two most fundamental goals of every creature on this planet. Accordingly, whatever helped our ancestors either to survive or reproduce has now become an inherited part of our behavior. Of particular interest here is the parental investment theory given by Trivers (1972). According to this theory, in any species, the sex that invests more in offspring will be more discriminating when selecting a mate whereas the sex that invests less in the offspring would be less discriminating when selecting a mate as well as be more competitive to get access to the high investing sex. In humans, it is women that invest more in the children than what men do. As a result, the mechanisms that women developed to ensure their reproductive success differ from the ones developed by men. These preferences also differ according to type of relationship desired i.e., short term or long term.

This theory has generated abundance of research since its conception. In a study conducted on 37 cultures, David Buss reports ' Females were found to value cues to resource acquisition in potential mates more highly than males. Characteristics signaling reproductive capacity were valued more by males than by females' (Buss 1989). These differences have been found to be robust across a wide age range (Schwarz and Hassebrauck, 2012). India is no exception to this. A study conducted by Shanmukh Kamble et al. in 2014 on an Indian sample found that as expected women preferred cures to resources whereas men preferred cues to fertility. They also found several newly emerging preferences such as creativity, artistry, etc. Despite India's method of arrange marriages, both the sexes showed a preference for mutual attraction and love. In 2001, David Buss and colleagues studied evolution of cultural values and found that compared to the original data, both the sexes gave greater importance to physical attractiveness and financial prospectus. Mutual attraction and love was another equally preferred factor. Cultural changes such as greater access for women to financial resources etc were speculated to be the reason behind these shifts.

Over the period, the context of mate selection changed and so did the context of the studies based on it. Today, a major platform for mate selection is online dating. There are 91million people worldwide using dating apps (Online Dating Statistics and Fats, 2015). The most popular among them being the mobile app of Tinder. India is Asia's largest market for Tinder. It was launched in India in 2016 and has quickly become one of the popular apps for the youth. It uses mobile's GPS feature and Facebook data to present a user with hundreds of matches in a day.

Studies on online dating have found gender differences in mate preferences with women preferring good financial prospectus over good looks. Additionally, both men and women were found to show a preference for people with same race (Hitsch, Hortacsu and Arily, 2010). A study on speed dating experiment showed that women give more importance to intelligence, race of the partner and to men belonging to an affluent family. Whereas men respond more to physical attractiveness and do not like a woman with higher intelligence or ambition than their own (Fisman et al., 2006).

The objective of the current study was to examine these sex differences for mate preferences in the context of online dating on Indian population. Studying online dating behavior of Indians becomes even more interesting due to the long standing tradition arrange marriages that is somewhat opposite to what Tinder does.

Discussion

For all the five factors studies here, men and women have differed significantly in the ratings that they have given. As expected, men have rated physical attractiveness and chastity more whereas women have preferred ambitiousness, good financial prospectus and older age more. These results can very well be explained in evolutionary context. In case of women, a man with high social and financial prospectus gives better protection, respect, and resources of her and her child. Since the high social and financial prospectus can be found more among older males rather than younger ones, they started preferring a partner older than them. As the established markers of beauty are nothing but indicators of good health, attractive physical features became an important preference for males. Similarly, as a younger woman has more of reproductive years left than an older women, men show a preferences for a younger partner. Unlike man as the internal fertilization and gestation happens in women, they are always sure of the child being their own. The adaptive mechanism that men evolved to deal with this is the preference for chastity.

A careful look at these results reveals several other intricacies. One of the questions asked in the survey asked' how frequently do you swipe right in a day?' men have reported swiping more frequently than women, reflecting their tendency to be less discriminating when choosing a mate. In case of type of relationship, chastity has been preferred more in long term rather than short term relationship. The evolutionary explanation for this could be that since reproduction is not the goal of short term mating, the need to ensure chastity might be less. For the same reason, ambitiousness was also desired more in long term relationship rather than short term.

Conclusion

These results help to explain human behavior in the rapidly changing digital world. Perhaps, our psyche cannot develop as fast as the everyday developing technology. As a result, some of our innate tendencies still dictate our behaviors. The current study can be improved in several ways. Online dating behavior of those with homosexual orientation and of people with other genders can be included. Similarly, this study can also be conducted across different regions of India and with larger age groups. Factors that translate online dating into an actual marriage can also be studied.