Matching algorithms are a central feature of online dating, yet little research exists on their effectiveness—or people’s perceptions of their effectiveness—for recommending a mate. Accordingly, this study explores the effects of people’s beliefs in the legitimacy of algorithms on their first date with an online dating partner. Longitudinal survey data were collected from online dating participants leading up to and following the first date. Findings suggested that whether algorithms actually worked mattered less than whether participants had the perception that they worked for finding a partner. Moreover, participants reported better first dates to the extent that they believed in the efficacy of the compatibility matching process. The results have implications for understanding the role of algorithms in shaping relationship success on and off the internet.
AhuviaA. C.AdelmanM. B. (1992). Formal intermediaries in the marriage market: A typology and review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 54, 452–463. https://doi.org/10.2307/353076
2.
AltmanI.TaylorD. A. (1973). Social penetration: The development of interpersonal relationships. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
3.
AntheunisM. L.ValkenburgP. M.PeterJ. (2010). Getting acquainted through social network sites: Testing a model of online uncertainty reduction and social attraction. Computers in Human Behavior, 26, 100–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2009.07.005
4.
BucherT. (2017). The algorithmic imaginary: Explore the ordinary affects of Facebook algorithms. Information, Communication & Society, 20, 30–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1154086
5.
CacioppoJ. T.CacioppoS.GonzagaG. C.OgburnE. L.VanderWeeleT. J. (2013). Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, 10135–10140. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1222447110
CourtoisC.TimmermansE. (2018). Cracking the Tinder code: An experience sampling approach to the dynamics and impact of platform governing algorithms. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 23, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmy010
10.
CrumA.PhillipsD. J. (2015). Self-fulfilling prophesies, placebo effects, and the social-psychological creation of reality. In ScottR. A.KosslynS. M.BuchmannM. (Eds.), Emerging trends in the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 1–14). John Wiley.
11.
DerlegaV. J.MettsS.PetronioS.MargulisS. T. (1993). Self-disclosure. SAGE.
12.
DerlegaV. J.WinsteadB. A.GreeneK. (2008). Self-disclosure and starting a close relationship. In SprecherS.WenzelA.HarveyJ. (Eds.), Handbook of relationship initiation (pp. 153–174). Psychology Press.
EastwickP. W.FinkelE. J. (2008). Sex differences in mate preferences revisited: Do people know what they initially desire in a romantic partner?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 245–264. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.2.245
15.
EastwickP. W.FinkelE. J.EaglyA. H. (2011). When and why do ideal partner preferences affect the process of initiating and maintaining romantic relationships?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 1012–1032. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024062
EvansS. K.PearceK. E.VitakJ.TreemJ. W. (2017). Explicating affordances: A conceptual framework for understanding affordances in communication research. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 22, 35–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12180
18.
FestingerL. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.
19.
FinkelE. J.EastwickP. W.KarneyB. R.ReisH. T.SprecherS. (2012). Online dating: A critical analysis from the perspective of psychological science. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13, 3–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612436552
20.
FriedrichA.FlungerB.NagengastB.JonkmannK.TrautweinU. (2015). Pygmalion effects in the classroom: Teacher expectancy effects on students’ math achievement. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 41, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2014.10.006
GillespieT. (2014). The relevance of algorithms. In GillespieT.BoczkowskiP. J.FootK. A. (Eds.), Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society (pp. 167–194). MIT Press.
23.
HajianS.BonchiF.CastilloC. (2016). Algorithmic bias: From discrimination discovery to fairness-aware data mining [Conference session]. Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, San Francisco, CA, United States.
24.
HalaburdaH.PiskorskiM. J.YildirimP. (2018). Competing by restricting choice: The case of matching platforms. Management Science, 64, 3574–3594. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2797
25.
HeinoR. D.EllisonN. B.GibbsJ. L. (2010). Relationshopping: Investigating the market metaphor in online dating. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27, 427–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407510361614
26.
HouranJ.LangeR.RentfrowP. J.BrucknerK. H. (2004). Do online matchmaking tests work? An assessment of preliminary evidence for a publicized “predictive model of marital success.”North American Journal of Psychology, 6, 507–526. http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~atf/papers/houran_et_al_eharmony.pdf
27.
HutsonJ.TaftJ. G.BarocasS.LevyK. (2018). Debiasing desire: Addressing bias & discrimination on intimate platforms. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.01563
28.
JiangL. C.BazarovaN. N.HancockJ. T. (2011). The disclosure-intimacy link in computer-mediated communication: An attributional extension of the hyperpersonal model. Human Communication Research, 37, 58–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01393.x
29.
JiangL. C.BazarovaN. N.HancockJ. T. (2013). From perception to behavior: Disclosure reciprocity and the intensification of intimacy in computer-mediated communication. Communication Research, 40, 125–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650211405313
30.
JoelS.EastwickP. W.FinkelE. J. (2017). Is romantic desire predictable? Machine learning applied to initial romantic attraction. Psychological Science, 28, 1478–1489. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617714580
31.
KimJ.DindiaK. (2011). Online self-disclosure: A review of research. In WrightK. B.WebbL. M. (Eds.), Computer-mediated communication in personal relationships (pp. 156–180). Peter Lang.
32.
KirschI.SapirsteinG. (1998). Listening to Prozac but hearing placebo: A meta-analysis of antidepressant medication. Prevention & Treatment, 1, Article 2a. https://doi.org/10.1037//1522-3736.1.0002a
MaxwellJ. A.MuiseA.MacDonaldG.DayL. C.RosenN. O.ImpettE. A. (2017). How implicit theories of sexuality shape sexual and relationship well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112, 238–279. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000078
38.
McClungM.CollinsD. (2007). “Because I know it will!”: Placebo effects of an ergogenic aid on athletic performance. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 29, 382–394. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.29.3.382
McKennaK. Y. A.GreenA. S.GleasonM. E. J. (2002). Relationship formation on the Internet: What’s the big attraction?Journal of Social Issues, 58, 9–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00246
41.
MillerP. J. E.NiehuisS.HustonT. L. (2006). Positive illusions in marital relationships: A 13-year longitudinal study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 1579–1594. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167206292691
NguyenM.BinY. S.CampbellA. (2012). Comparing online and offline self-disclosure: A systematic review. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15, 103–111. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2011.0277
OrtegaJ.HergovichP. (2018). The strength of absent ties: Social integration via online dating. arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.10478. https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.10478
PriceD. D.FinnissD. G.BenedettiF. (2008). A comprehensive review of the placebo effect: Recent advances and current thought. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 565–590. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.59.113006.095941
50.
RaderE.GrayR. (2015). Understanding user beliefs about algorithmic curation in the Facebook news feed [Conference session]. CHI ’15 Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
51.
RainieL.AndersonJ. (2017). Code-dependent: Pros and cons of the algorithm age. Pew Research Center.
52.
RoeseN. J.ShermanJ. W. (2007). Expectancy. In KruglanskiA. W.HigginsE. T. (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 91–115). Guilford Press.
53.
RosenfeldM. J.ThomasR. J. (2012). Searching for a mate: The rise of the Internet as a social intermediary. American Sociological Review, 77, 523–547. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412448050
RosenthalR. (1994). Interpersonal expectancy effects: A 30-year perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 3, 176–179. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.ep10770698
56.
RuppelE. K.GrossC.StollA.PeckB. S.AllenM.KimS. Y. (2017). Reflecting on connecting: Meta-analysis of differences between computer-mediated and face-to-face self-disclosure. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 22, 18–34. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12179
57.
SharabiL. L.CaughlinJ. P. (2017). What predicts first date success? A longitudinal study of modality switching in online dating. Personal Relationships, 24, 370–391. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12188
58.
SharabiL. L.CaughlinJ. P. (2019). Deception in online dating: Significance and implications for the first offline date. New Media & Society, 21, 229–247. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818792425
59.
SharabiL. L.Dykstra-DeVetteT. A. (2019). From first email to first date: Strategies for initiating relationships in online dating. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36, 3389–3407. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407518822780
60.
SmithA.AndersonM. (2016). 5 facts about online dating. Pew Research Center.
TongS. T.HancockJ. T.SlatcherR. B. (2016). Online dating system design and relational decision making: Choice, algorithms, and control. Personal Relationships, 23, 645–662. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12158
67.
VanVoorhisC. R. W.MorganB. L. (2007). Understanding power and rules of thumb for determining sample sizes. Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 3, 43–50. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.03.2.p043
68.
WaltherJ. B. (1992). Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction: A relational perspective. Communication Research, 19, 52–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365092019001003
69.
WaltherJ. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication Research, 23, 3–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365096023001001
WheelessL. R. (1978). A follow-up study of the relationships among trust, disclosure, and interpersonal solidarity. Human Communication Research, 4, 143–157. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1978.tb00604.x
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
