Meeting Places & Romance

Judging Romantic Interest

From a study authored by Skyler S. Place, Peter M. Todd, Lars Penke, and Jens B. Asendorpf from (respectively) Indiana University, University of Edinburgh, and Humboldt University of Berlin.

"The videos of mate-choice situations were gathered during a series of laboratory-based speed dating sessions run at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Speed dating is a paradigm designed to allow singles to meet a large number of possible mates in a short period of time (Finkel & Eastwick, 2008)."

Discussion: "The data supported our two main hypotheses: observers were able to assess the dating interest of others at above-chance levels, and the length of time required to do so was brief. For both sexes, accurately perceiving romantic interest both of and toward potential mates holds evolutionary benefits through the efficient allocation of mating effort. Our results suggest that men and women possess this adaptive ability. Whether it is the result of a domain-specific adaptation or a more general ability for social perception remains to be determined."

"Furthermore, as predicted, it was on average much easier for observers to gauge men’s intentions than women’s (though there was high variance in observers’ performance levels across individual daters of both sexes). The lower overall accuracy concerning women’s intentions was not due to observers guessing or performing at chance, but to a systematic over-perception of interest on the part of the female daters — surpassing 80% erroneous interest predictions for the five hardest-to-read women."

"This dramatic rate of incorrect perception supports our hypothesis that women are harder to read, presumably because they mask their true intentions: As Grammer and colleagues (2000) argue, the biologically deep-rooted sex inequality in parental investment (Trivers, 1972) puts greater risks on the females of a species during mate choice. As a result, females, including women in speed-dating (Todd et al., 2007), are much more critical and picky when making mate choice decisions. Then, in order to evaluate potential mates longer without signaling their true intentions, women behave more covertly and ambiguously during initial interactions with the opposite sex. Men, in contrast, face lower risks and consequently should be less likely to hide their intentions. In our study, observers only see an individual interacting on one date, but perhaps if multiple dates with the same individual were presented, observers would be better able to differentiate instances of deceptive and true interest from that individual."

Read the entire study, The Ability to Judge the Romantic Interest of Others, American Psychological Association 5th Edition

Trustworthy or Fearsome

A computer program developed by by a pair of Princeton researchers will allow scientists to better analyze what makes human faces look either trustworthy or fearsome:

"A pair of Princeton psychology researchers has developed a computer program that allows scientists to analyze better than ever before what it is about certain human faces that makes them look either trustworthy or fearsome. In doing so, they have also found that the program allows them to construct computer-generated faces that display the most trustworthy or dominant faces possible.

"Such work could have implications for those who care what effect their faces may have upon a beholder, from salespeople to criminal defendants, the researchers said.

"In a paper appearing in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Alexander Todorov, an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton, and Nikolaas Oosterhof, a research specialist, continue an inquiry into the myriad messages conveyed by the human face. In 2005, Todorov's lab garnered international headlines with a study published in Science demonstrating that quick facial judgments can accurately predict real-world election results.

"Taking what they have learned over time — namely that, rightly or wrongly, people make instant judgments about faces that guide them in how they feel about that person — the scientists decided to search for a way to quantify and define exactly what it is about each person's face that conveys a sense they can be trusted or feared. They chose those precise traits because they found they corresponded with a whole host of other vital characteristics, such as happiness and maturity.

"Humans seem to be wired to look to faces to understand the person's intentions," said Todorov, who has spent years studying the subtleties of the simple plane containing the eyes, nose and mouth. "People are always asking themselves, 'Does this person have good or bad intentions?'"

To conduct the study, the scientists showed unfamiliar faces to test subjects and asked them to describe traits they could gauge from the faces. The scientists boiled down the list of traits to about a dozen of the most commonly cited characteristics, including aggressiveness, unkemptness and various emotional states. The researchers showed the faces to another group and asked them to rate each face for the degree to which it possessed one of the dozen listed traits.

"Based on this data, the scientists found that humans make split-second judgments on faces on two major measures — whether the person should be approached or avoided and whether the person is weak or strong."

Read the rest of the release at the Princeton site. The entire article, The Functional Basis of Face Evaluation, requires a subscription at PNAS.

Pew Internet Project Reports

Online Dating: Americans who are seeking romance use the internet to help them in their search, but there is still widespread public concern about the safety of online dating

There is now relatively broad public contact with the online dating world. Some 31% of American adults say they know someone who has used a dating website and 15% of American adults – about 30 million people – say they know someone who has been in a long-term relationship or married someone he or she met online.

Yet, dating websites are just one of many online avenues that can facilitate a romantic connection. Three out of four internet users who are single and looking for a romantic partner have done at least one dating-related activity online — ranging from using dating websites, to searching for information about prospective dates, to flirting via email and instant messaging, to browsing for information about the local singles scene.

Some 11% of all internet users and 37% of those who are single and looking say they have gone to dating websites. A majority of them say they have had positive experiences and believe their use of such sites helps them to find a better match. A notable number of these online daters have found firsthand that lasting romance can be forged online; 17% of them say they have entered long-term relationships or married someone they met through the services.

Read the report at the Pew site and view the questionnaire used for the survey.

Romance in America

Large numbers of single Americans are not actively looking for relationships and even significant numbers of those looking for partners are not that active on the dating scene.

At first glance, the survey results suggest ample targets for Cupid among American adults ... while the majority of American adults (56% or 113 million people) are not in the dating market (they are married or living as married), the number of potential romance-seekers is still huge. Fully 43% of adults (87 million people) say they are single. These data generally align with findings from a 50,000-household survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2004.

These findings emerge from a national survey conducted last fall by the Pew Internet & American Life Project looking at the place of online dating in the larger picture of relationships in America. The survey found that dating in America is, indeed, affected by online matchmaking activity.

In general, marriage patterns have ebbed and flowed over time. Census data show fairly consistent patterns throughout the first half of the 20th century with a swing towards marriage in the 1950s and 1960s. Marriage rates then receded as the ranks of both the widowed and the never-married increased.

While a sizable segment of the population is single, about a quarter of unmarried Americans (26% or about 23 million adults) say they are in committed romantic relationships. Single men are more likely than single women to report being so situated. Yet among the uncommitted, relatively few say they are in the market for relationships.

Among all singles, just 16% say they are currently looking for a romantic partner. That amounts to 7% of the adult population. Some 55% of singles report no active interest in seeking a romantic partner. This is especially true for women, for those who have been widowed or divorced, and for older singles.

A detailed look at online dating will be reported soon from the Pew Internet Project and will be available on its web site. You can also sign up to receive an email alert when the Project's report becomes available.

The Seduction Artists

"I came to the seductress, like most people, through the imagination. Raised in a southern belle culture, with a mother who was the Miss Valentine of Richmond, Virginia, I gravitated as a child to stories of man charmers in fiction and fairy tales. Much later I taught a college course on the topic “The Seductress in Literature” that changed everything. First I discovered the dearth of research — few unbiased or comprehensive studies — and second a ravenous appetite among young people for knowledge. In my class, students of both sexes avidly analyzed fabled sirens and tried to scope out their secrets. Afterward, the women flooded my office. Over and over I heard the same laments: elusive bad boys, soulless hookups, sapped confidence, wrecked pride, and total mystification about how to prevail in love.

"As I looked around, I realized my students reflected a larger crisis in society. Across the culture, women seemed to have lost the plot erotically and entered the “plague years.” Despite equal opportunity sex and babe feminism, guys still hold the whip hand: They have numbers on their side (48 percent women to 43 percent men nationwide); they age better and cling like crotch crabs to their historic prerogatives of the initiative, double standard, promiscuity, mate trade-ins, domination, and domestic copouts. The population of single women, especially middle-aged professionals and first wives, has swelled to one in four, with most wanting and failing to “get married.”

"In surveys, women en masse report epic demoralization and erotic despair. We say we’re “increasingly loved and left,” prey to low self-esteem, and “really lonely and really afraid.” The orgasm gap—the 15 to 30 percent female success rate during intercourse—continues to widen, as women clamor for a Viagra equivalent and numb themselves with antidepressants. “No one disputes the evidence,” writes a New York Times reporter, “that many women are unhappy with their sex lives” or that we’re engaged “in a frantic search for a role model.”

"By the end of the semester I began investigating actual seductresses in hopes of finding role models to pull us out of this funk. I cast my nets wide. I read hundreds of biographies; I pumped friends and colleagues; I followed up leads dropped at parties, here and abroad. The list burgeoned; notebooks bulged until at last I narrowed the field to the top players. I defined the seductress as a powerful fascinator able to get and keep the men of her choice, men who are good for her. Rarely discarded or two-timed, she successfully combines erotic supremacy with personal and vocational achievement. That automatically eliminated a number of pseudoseductresses: the eaten and colonized Marilyn Monroe, the oft-dumped flunky Pamela Harriman, and such gofers to male genius as Alma Mahler.

Read the entire excerpt from Seductress; Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love at B&N's website

Tech Solutions: nTags

I'm not suggesting that this would work in all social situations but the very idea seems to be a rational approach to those (forgive the overworked phrase!) ... senior moments.

"When people meet, their nTAGs identify things they have in common and provide that information right at the beginning of the conversation, just the way a gracious host would. nTAGs make it easy to meet new people, figure out who to spend time with, and quickly build real connections."

Simple, no? The product is an interactive name badge, a wearable computer in actuality. Prospective users are reassured that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to use the product.

One publicity release describes it this way: The interactive badges are worn in the same way as traditional nametags but have the ability to exchange data with each other over a distance of three feet and then display information customised to people who meet and interact. Each user reads the message on the other person’s tag just as they would a name badge except nTAG displays relevant information and mutual interests between attendees.

We realize that the following 'games' were devised for business situations, but hey, they have a slightly sexy bent:

Treasure Hunt – To collect a treasure, each attendee has to accomplish networking tasks such as meeting people from other countries, visiting expo booths, or finding an accountant who loves broccoli.

Secret Partner – Each attendee is assigned a “secret partner” to find. Greeting people one by one, the task would be impossible. But nTAGs help participants use the power of networking to find their secret partner while meeting others along the way.

Sadly, the badges are only available to rent at the moment but considering my difficulty with remembering people's names at gatherings, I'm intrigued.

Mating and Relating

"Wouldn’t the mating game be much easier if you could recognize where you blossom and where you may tend to wilt? Are you making an impression on the people you meet at work, at parties, and at the grocery store? And if so, exactly what kind of impression are you leaving behind?"

Examples of the quiz at the Penguin Putnam site promoting the book, Rate Yourself on Romance Self-Evaluation to Assess Your Love Life:

How Romantic Are You?

1) Your 6-month anniversary with your significant other is coming up in one week.

As a gift, you will:
a) Do nothing. You're not into the whole gift thing.
b) Run out that day to get a card – you always leave things like that to the last minute.
c) Shop around for the next few days to find a gift you know your partner will love.
d) Relax. You've already bought a gift and planned a special celebration for the occasion.

2) Your pet name for your significant other is:
a) Any cute name that you can imagine b) Honey
c) His/her given name
d) Baby

3) It's Friday night, and you've got a date with your partner. What are your ideal plans?

a) Watching a romantic video while cuddling by the light of scented candles. b) Getting together with your partner and a bunch of good friends.
c) Getting dressed up for a night that will include good wine, a fine meal, dancing and a moonlit stroll.
d) Staying in with a warm bath drawn for two, followed by sensual full body massage and champagne and strawberries.

Online Dating Article

"In 1999, after a long dry spell, datewise, I explored a new dating frontier - online personal ads. I posted my own ads, answered others, and met and dated men I met online. I learned that, while some of the same commonsense guidelines that have always applied to dating still work, there are a lot of new guidelines that come with the territory."

Online Dating Tips