An evaluation of 308 courting profiles revealed that individuals who present originality of their bios are seen as extra clever and extra humorous, and in flip, extra engaging. Original profile bios tended to include extra self-disclosure and extra stylistic options like metaphors. These findings have been printed within the journal PLOS One.
Originality is usually touted as a beautiful high quality in a romantic companion, though this can be a high quality line to tread. Originality can talk intelligence and humorousness, however being too totally different can violate social norms and are available throughout as inappropriate and odd. Researchers Tess van der Zanden and her colleagues opted to discover this dynamic throughout the context of on-line courting profiles.
Online courting profiles usually embody a bio part the place a hopeful describes themselves in their very own phrases. These texts have a tendency to incorporate clichés and generic statements, and individuals are typically suggested to put in writing one thing distinctive to face out from others.
“When looking at existing dating profiles on dating platforms, we noticed that a lot of profiles were highly similar in terms of content and language,” defined van der Zanden, an assistant professor of communication and cognition at Tilburg University. “We we somewhat surprised by this as quite a few dating platforms recommend their users to creative unique and original profiles.”
“At the same time, no scientific research actually demonstrated that original and unique profiles are valued more than mundane and ‘boring’ ones. We believed it would be very interesting – and complex – to further investigate creativity and originality as these concepts are highly context- and person-dependent.”
Van der Zanden and her group performed two research to discover the literary parts that make these profile texts extra unique, and whether or not the originality of those texts results in a extra favorable notion of the profile proprietor.
First, the researchers obtained information from 31,163 courting profiles from two Dutch courting websites. They then chosen 308 profile bios that various of their perceived originality based mostly on their use of unusual phrases. Half of the texts have been written by males, and half have been written by ladies.
Next, a pattern of 1,234 members with a mean age of 63 was proven a random collection of 5 of the courting profiles. Participants have been proven profiles that corresponded with their indicated sexual choice. The topics have been requested to charge the originality of the profile and their perceptions of the profile proprietor’s intelligence, humorousness, and oddness. They additionally rated the profile proprietor’s bodily, social, and romantic attractiveness and indicated whether or not or not they wish to go on a date with them.
The outcomes revealed that members perceived the profile homeowners with extra unique texts to be extra clever. In flip, they rated them larger in bodily and romantic attractiveness and have been extra prepared so far them. Participants additionally perceived the profile homeowners with extra unique texts to have a better humorousness, and in flip, they rated them larger in bodily, social, and romantic attractiveness and have been extra prepared so far them. Mediation evaluation revealed that larger intelligence, larger humorousness, and decrease oddness totally mediated the connection between perceived profile textual content originality and attractiveness.
“In general, original profiles are valued as owners of profiles that are perceived as more original are also rated as more attractive. This might be partially explained by the fact that owners of original profiles are perceived as more intelligent and funny, which are generally personality traits we consider attractive in a potential romantic partner,” van der Zanden informed PsyPost.
In a second research, the researchers performed a content material evaluation to find out which particular options contributed to perceptions of originality. They coded the texts for stylistic options, self-disclosure, and perspective-taking. “As there were no specific studies yet on what constitutes creativity in online dating profiles, we decided to content analyse the profiles that the participants evaluated to see what what text characteristics predicted perceived profile text originality,” van der Zanden defined.
This evaluation revealed that profile texts that have been deemed extra unique had extra metaphors and have been much less more likely to be solely written from the profile proprietor’s personal perspective. The extra unique profiles additionally tended to include extra self-disclosing statements and self-disclosure that was concrete and evoked clear imagery.
“Our results showed that two main types of text characteristics predicted the text originality scores: stylistic and self-disclosure features boosted perceived text originality scores,” van der Zanden mentioned.
“With regard to stylistic features, our findings show that profiles that score higher on perceived profile text originality are more likely to contain one or more fixed or novel metaphors (e.g., “I’m colourful as the rainbow”). Considering self-disclosure, we discovered that each options that appeared on the amount (i.e., complete variety of phrases and complete quantity of shared private info) in addition to high quality of the self-disclosure (i.e., the prevalence of concrete private info shared) predicted textual content originality scores. Thus, these may be traits one may wish to embody of their courting profile.”
Overall, the research findings counsel that the originality of a courting profile positively influences impressions of the profile proprietor’s character, and in flip, their attractiveness. Certain traits could make profile texts seem extra unique, akin to disclosing extra concrete private info and utilizing extra stylistic options like metaphors. Interestingly, profile texts that have been perceived as odd scored decrease on originality and decrease on perceived social and romantic attractiveness.
“We initially hypothesised that we expected that owners of profiles that scored higher on originality would also be perceived as more odd/strange/peculiar, as this profile text originality might well spillover into perceptions about this person’s behavior or social skills in other situations, that might also be more strange and less predictable,” van der Zanden informed PsyPost. “Our study did not confirm this expectation, as we found that if profiles scored higher on perceived text originality, their writers were considered less odd. This aligns with the general positive impact of originality on impression formation.”
“Another findings we considered interesting – and somewhat surprising – is the fact that also various features related to self-disclosure seemed to be predictors of perceived text originality. These features seemed to be more related to content, suggesting that one can be both original in what information is presented (self-disclosure) and how this information is presented (stylistic features).”
The authors word that their research pattern was comprised of older adults, who have a tendency to make use of courting platforms that rely closely on textual parts. They say it might be insightful to discover how different demographics understand courting profile originality, akin to youthful daters who have a tendency to make use of courting apps which might be extra image-focused.
“Our sample consisted of members of online dating platforms,” van der Zanden defined. “While this is a strength of the study, it should at the same time be mentioned that the average age of the respondents was around 65 years. This is because we collaborated with the dating platform 50PlusMatch, which is a specific platform for active people of 50 years or older. Given this sample, we can thus not generalize our findings and draw any conclusions about general effects of perceived profile text originality on impression formation across all ages.”
“Moreover, on some platforms, such as 50PlusMatch, the textual component of the profile also plays a more prominent role compared to more picture-prominent platforms, such as Tinder and Happn. As we were specifically interested in the effects of perceived originality in the profile texts on impression formation in this study, I believe it is a strength of the study that we have included participants who are actually familiar with these kind of text-prominent dating profiles.”
“Nevertheless, further research should be done do investigate how different dating demographics appreciate originality in dating profile texts, for example by conducting a comparable study among younger samples as younger adults are often more inclined to use dating applications with more picture-based dating profiles,” van der Zanden continued.
“Secondly, the current study focused only on general perceptions of text originality and profile owner perceptions. However, creativity is generally seen as a construct that consists of two dimensions: novelty (something being distinct, different) and appropriate (something being appropriate/meaningful for the context for which it is produced). We are currently further exploring how these two dimensions of creativity interact and affect impression formation, but these studies have not yet been published.”
The research, “Originality in online dating profile texts: How does perceived originality affect impression formation and what makes a text original?”, was authored by Tess van der Zanden, Alexander P. Schouten, Maria B. J. Mos, and Emiel J. Krahmer.
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