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Accepted manuscript

Predictors and Memory Consequences of Dating Decisions in a Dating App-Analogue Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2024

Yikang Zhang*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Pekka Santtila
Affiliation:
New York University Shanghai, Shanghai, China.
*
*Correspondence.

Abstract

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With the rise of dating apps, people have access to a vast pool of potential partners at their fingertips. The present study examined how various factors would predict an individual's dating decisions in a dating app–analog study. Participants (N = 269) first completed some trait measures and then a mock-dating task in which they judged the attractiveness of a series of targets and then decided whether to match with the target or not. Their memories for the targets were tested on the second day. People who were more (vs. less) short-term oriented were more likely to match with short-term-oriented targets. Moral disgust and sexual disgust negatively predicted the matching with short-term oriented targets. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find support that people with higher (vs. lower) pathogen disgust sensitivity would selectively match with more attractive targets. Exploratory analyses showed that people who were more (vs. less) short-term oriented, more (vs. less) sexually attractive, or had higher (v. lower) mate value, were more likely to match with targets they considered as attractive. Finally, people have better memories of the faces they chose to match than to not match. Implications to mating research and limitations were discussed.

Type
Registered Report
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press