The Truth About Stats And Dogs
I'm a woman looking for a new boyfriend and considering various online dating sites. Some have long questionnaires, and they factor your answers into an "algorithm" to match you with the best possible partner. Are these sites significantly better than the others?
--Site Seeker
Most people will tell you they want to be accepted for who they really are -- yet those doing online dating rarely post profiles with stuff like "I like long walks on the beach, fine dining, and obscenely large breasts."
In light of this, sites using these compatibility "algorithms" would seem to have some added value. However, according to a massive online dating analysis by social psychologist Eli Finkel and his colleagues, this algorithm stuff mainly seems to be a "science!"-flavored marketing ploy. The researchers explain that it's "virtually impossible" for sites to do what they promise with these algorithms: "match people who are uniquely suited to one another" and who are likely to have a "satisfying and lasting long-term relationship" together.
As the Finkel team notes about the "uniquely suited" business: The evidence suggests that these algorithms are really no better at rooting out compatible partners than the matching most people already do themselves with sites' search parameters -- culling the herd of breathing, profile-posting humans down to, say, fellow Ph.D.s who are also weekend Satan worshippers. ("Shall we meet at the Starbucks by your office, or are you up for an afternoon of ritual goat slaughter?")
Even more outrageous is the sites' claim that this mathematical alchemy can identify two people who can have a lasting, happy relationship together who have yet to even meet. The researchers point out that the algorithms only measure the "individual characteristics of partners" (personality, attitudes, values, background). They note that this is just one of three essential variables that determine whether relationships sink or swim.
The other two are elements that can't really be sussed out before two people are in a relationship. One is the "circumstances surrounding (a) couple" -- like how they fit into each other's family and whether one loses their job or goes through other major stressors. The other factor is the "interactions between the partners" -- how partners communicate, solve problems, and support each other.
I would add an essential fourth factor that needs to be assessed face to face -- physical attraction. So, regarding those "29 dimensions of compatibility!" that one site advertises, consider, if you will, 30 and 31: discovering "this must be what dead bodies smell like when the detectives cover their nose with a hanky on TV" and "I'm as sexually attracted to you as I am to a stalk of wheat."
There's also the "garbage in, garbage out" problem (statisticians' shorthand for how poor-quality input leads to poor-quality output). It's unlikely that people are any more honest and accurate in filling out these questionnaires than they are in their online dating profiles. (No, sadly, outside the world of "gender-fluid" activism, being a woman isn't just "a state of mind.")
Typically, deception in online dating profiles is intentional; sometimes -- as research on personality finds -- we can't quite see ourselves as we really are. For example, take an item on one of these sites' compatibility surveys: "I try to accommodate the other person's position."
There are seven little circles on a scale to blacken in, from "not at all" to "very well." Well, okay, but do control freaks always understand that they're control freaks? Sometimes somebody seriously controlling might fill in "very well" on "I try to accommodate..." simply because they see themselves in the best light -- instead of the actual light: "I'm Stalin -- though I've never been able to grow much of a mustache."
Probably the best that can be said about these personality questionnaires is that they might lead you into a little helpful introspection. But otherwise, these tests seem as pointless as they are grueling (kind of like filling out an application for a bank loan for your personality).
This isn't to knock online dating itself, which offers really rapid, easy access to a lot of potential partners whom you'd probably never meet otherwise. However, it helps to have a smart strategy vis-a-vis the potential pitfalls, and that's meeting any person you think might be a possibility ASAP (before you have any long, bond-y text-athons).
Meeting pronto gives you the best shot at seeing whether you click, as well as spotting any vast differences between profile and reality. And as I always advise about first dates, keep it cheap, short, and local. Less investment means less disappointment if you find out a guy's lying -- or, maybe worse, if he's being honest: He really is looking for his "partner in crime" -- because one of the guys on his robbery crew got arrested last week.
The best way to get accurate assessments is the forced choice question, especially when all of the choices are negative in one way or another.
Unfortunately, forced-choice instruments are so annoying that, unless under some kind of duress, most people won't do them.
Richard Aubrey at August 16, 2017 4:16 AM
Thanks Amy. I was kind of dragging this morning, and then I read: "Hi, I'm Stalin..." If I'm ever in the position of meeting someone like the insurance salesman in "Ground Hog Day", I'll be sure to use that.
"Uh, no, I'm not Ned. I'm Stalin. You just haven't seen any recent pictures of me."
SlowMindThinking at August 16, 2017 7:29 AM
Dirty little secret: When I was in high school in the '70s, "computer dating" was still a fairly new novelty. A group of us in school had access to a computer (unusual for high school kids in those days), a Data General with 64 Kbytes of memory that cost more than most people's houses. We got the idea to use it to generate "computer dates" for a school dance; the principal thought it was a cute idea, so we wrote some software.
We'd have people come in and read questions that the software spat out, and we'd type in their answers (mere mortals did not touch the terminal back then). There were 20 or so question, inane stuff like "what's your favorite color" and "what meal do you like best, breakfast, lunch, or dinner". The software dutifully logged this in a database.
When everyone who wanted to had signed up, we ran our super-secret algorithm and it spat out date pairs. People who had signed up went to the dance and at the door they had a list of who their dates were. Most people didn't stay with their dates, but we got a few comments back afterwards along the lines of "Wow, that computer really knew what it was doing! My date was perfect for me!" Dirty little secret, unknown by all but a few to this day: Our super-secret algorithm was a random number generator. The code ignored all of that carefully databased information and went down the lists matching up boys and girls at random.
Cousin Dave at August 16, 2017 10:56 AM
Really CD, totally random? You guys didnt snag your crushes for yourselves?
lujlp at August 16, 2017 11:35 AM
In high school, I didn't know any girls my age (that I wasn't related to). Long story. The fact that I was a computer geek in 1975 should tell you something.
Cousin Dave at August 17, 2017 6:50 AM
Of course, all of this is based on the assumption that people actually tell the truth about themselves.
rick at August 17, 2017 7:02 AM
Hmm.
There is this thing called 'emotional investment'.
On a website which offered contrarian advice to the 'keep it short, light and cheap', it stated that actually preparing and making oneself invested in the outcome of the date was a signal in and of itself.
Yes, the resources made were larger but this served that 'investment' purpose and also caused the spender to focus. If one can only afford 4 significant dates a month, one will be quite a bit choosier in ones selection of prospects, instead of treating dating like someone handing out pamphlets in the street for a 'sign up for one date, get another one free'.
Personally I can see it both ways. With the online thing, the 'coffee' date is there o do a photo verification of the person. Can't one do the same with a Skype call or two, which is even cheaper and easier?
From there, if that 'spark' is there, or if one wants to try to kindle one, a more serious date may be in order.
Just throwing it out there.
FIDO at August 19, 2017 10:45 AM
Leave a comment