Not getting enough likes on Tinder? It's probably not your fault. New online-dating research reveals you're more likely to get a "right swipe" if your profile comes after an attractive person's profile. However, the opposite is also true. An unattractive face makes a succeeding face appear less attractive.
"While online dating is popular, and is certainly an efficient (and anonymous) way to sort through potential mates from the comfort of one's own home, it may not be quite as reliable as it seems given the recent evidence for sequential dependencies when judging rapid sequences of faces," researchers from School of Psychology at the University wrote in the study.
"From an evolutionary perspective, attractiveness is a key social characteristic that determines how approachable or desirable we are. Perceived attractiveness is determined not only by our own attributes but by the attractiveness of people around us," they added.
Researchers in the latest study created a program that replicated dating sites like e-Harmony, OK Cupid and Tinder.
In the experiment, 32 female participants were shown 60 male profile pictures. Participants were asked to rate the profile pictures as wither attractive or unattractive. Researchers presumed that all the pictures were intended to attract female attention as they were culled from heterosexual sections of dating sites.
"The stimuli were 60 online male profile pictures retrieved from rating and match-making website www.hotornot.com. Without transformation, these images were placed on a square canvas (537 pixels in height, subtending 14° of visual angle from the viewing distance of 57 cm)," researchers wrote.
"Images varied in composition, face size and background cues. Some images showed men dressed in casual clothes, others were in formal wear or work uniforms. Being profile pictures from a dating website we presume they were intended to attract female attention. All images but one were in color and three also contained an animal (one dog, one monkey, one dolphin)," they added.
Participants were asked to look at computer screens that presented them with profile pictures. After about 300ms, participants were asked to rate the picture as attractive or unattractive.
Study results revealed that profile pictures were significantly more likely to be rated as attractive if the picture in the previous profile was rated as attractive.
"Our results show that assimilative face effects are both quickly acquired and robust enough that even dichotomous attractiveness decisions are biased towards the previous trial," researchers wrote.
"For people sorting through faces in search of an attractive mate, it is a case of love at second sight: their final choice of desirable mate is likely to be one face too late," they concluded.
The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
