Posting the most flattering picture possible alongside one’s profile may seem a legitimate part of the internet dating game.
But if new research is to be believed, those who try to level the playing field by using photos which disguise their worst features could be wasting their time.
According to a university study, women can still identify a physically attractive man just by reading his profile.
Men whose photos were rated as attractive had written profiles that were also deemed to be attractive, despite words and images being rated by different judges, the study by Villanova University in Philadelphia, U.S., found.
Academics asked 50 female university students to examine profiles and pictures of 100 men aged 22-25 who had posted on a popular dating website.
The students were each given 25 of the photographs, and asked to rate how attractive they found each man if they were considering him for a date, short-term sexual encounter or long-term relationship. They were also asked to consider how confident and masculine he seemed from the picture.
They were then given the written profiles of 25 different men and again asked how attractive each seemed for a date, for sex and for a long-term committed relationship. They were also asked to rate each candidate on how kind, confident, intelligent, funny or humorous he seemed from his profile.
In a paper to be published in the Computers In Human Behavior journal, Rebecca Brand a psychologist who led the study, concluded: ‘The overall attractiveness of the photo was positively correlated with the overall attractiveness of the text. In other words, those who are physically attractive also write more appealing profiles.
‘In this sense, online dating does not seem to level the playing field for unattractive individuals.
‘Our data suggests that attractive individuals wrote texts (profiles) that conveyed confidence, and it was perhaps this confidence which primarily signalled quality to the women.’
The associate professor added that ‘such confidence may arise from attractive people’s general sense of their high mate-value’.
Although once considered by some to be the preserve of the aesthetically challenged, online dating has become a major and mainstream industry, worth an estimated £150million-a-year in Britain alone.
In 2009, a U.S. study found that an estimated that 13 per cent of marriages between January 2008 and June 2009 in the States were the result of relationships forged online.
this is a delusional bluepill article
But if new research is to be believed, those who try to level the playing field by using photos which disguise their worst features could be wasting their time.
According to a university study, women can still identify a physically attractive man just by reading his profile.
Men whose photos were rated as attractive had written profiles that were also deemed to be attractive, despite words and images being rated by different judges, the study by Villanova University in Philadelphia, U.S., found.
Academics asked 50 female university students to examine profiles and pictures of 100 men aged 22-25 who had posted on a popular dating website.
The students were each given 25 of the photographs, and asked to rate how attractive they found each man if they were considering him for a date, short-term sexual encounter or long-term relationship. They were also asked to consider how confident and masculine he seemed from the picture.
They were then given the written profiles of 25 different men and again asked how attractive each seemed for a date, for sex and for a long-term committed relationship. They were also asked to rate each candidate on how kind, confident, intelligent, funny or humorous he seemed from his profile.
In a paper to be published in the Computers In Human Behavior journal, Rebecca Brand a psychologist who led the study, concluded: ‘The overall attractiveness of the photo was positively correlated with the overall attractiveness of the text. In other words, those who are physically attractive also write more appealing profiles.
‘In this sense, online dating does not seem to level the playing field for unattractive individuals.
‘Our data suggests that attractive individuals wrote texts (profiles) that conveyed confidence, and it was perhaps this confidence which primarily signalled quality to the women.’
The associate professor added that ‘such confidence may arise from attractive people’s general sense of their high mate-value’.
Although once considered by some to be the preserve of the aesthetically challenged, online dating has become a major and mainstream industry, worth an estimated £150million-a-year in Britain alone.
In 2009, a U.S. study found that an estimated that 13 per cent of marriages between January 2008 and June 2009 in the States were the result of relationships forged online.
this is a delusional bluepill article
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