Well, love is not blind and opposites are only attracted when people think they are similar. These are the two main things that emerge from a survey conducted on users of OKCupid, one of the most popular dating sites on the Internet. This is evidence that shows us how we look for love in the digital age. At the same time, the results of the survey offer us another example of how such dating sites are used as social science laboratories, often without their users knowing it.
Despite the negative comments received by a similar study conducted by Facebook, OKCupid did not hesitate to publish the results of three experiments conducted with test subjects… the website’s users. In one test, the website hid profile photos. In another, it hid the text accompanying the profile in order to determine how personality evaluation was influenced by appearance, and in the third, it advised users that they would be happy or unhappy with a specific partner selected by the website’s computer, without, of course, this corresponding to the data it had at its disposal.
The study found that if a user on the site thinks another user is highly compatible, even though that may not be true, they will take the first step and send a message. Those who believed they were corresponding with their potential match were twice as likely to send up to four messages compared to people who believed they were connecting with someone they were not compatible with.
Easy to manipulate
The test also shows how easy it is for a website to manipulate its users without them knowing. The tests described by the website found that users tend to equate appearance with personality, even in cases where a profile photo is extremely attractive and no other information is available. But when the website "hidden" profile photos for a day, users communicated better, exchanged information more easily and responded to first messages more often than they did when the profile photos were visible. When the photos were returned, many of the conversations stopped. "It's like turning on the spotlights in a dimly lit bar at midnight," the website's head writes. But while appearance matters, there are exceptions. When users went on "blind dates," their satisfaction with the encounter was not affected by the other person's appearance.
Source: kathimerini.gr
