San Francisco
WOMEN looking for love on the Net this Valentine鈥檚 Day may get more roses if
they flaunt their wealth rather than their good looks, a study of online
personal ads suggests.
Don Strassberg, a psychologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City,
says he was intrigued when he discovered how many people were turning to the
Internet to seek a partner in life. 鈥淚 was infatuated with the possibilities of
the medium,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou can reach a wide variety of people cheaply.鈥�
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Strassberg wanted to understand the motivation that drives wired lonely
hearts, as previous research on personal ads has focused mostly on those placed
in newspapers. These studies concluded that men tend to be attracted by a
woman鈥檚 slimness and beauty, while women like their men tall and rich.
These are exactly the preferences that evolutionary biologists would predict.
The theory goes that men are looking for a woman in prime reproductive
condition, while women tend to seek a man with the resources to help her care
for a child.
To discover whether the same rules hold on the Net, Strassberg and his
student Stephen Holty crafted fictitious ads and placed them on three popular
Internet dating bulletin boards. Although the ads described both virtual men and
women, only those for the female cyberdates attracted enough responses to permit
analysis. Each ad claimed to be written by a woman between 26 and 28 years old
who was easy-going and optimistic, although all used slightly different
language. A control ad gave no further details. The other three labelled the
woman 鈥渧ery attractive鈥�, 鈥減assionate and sensitive鈥� or 鈥渇inancially successful
and ambitious鈥�.
After a week, these descriptions drew 507 responses. Each cybersuitor was
sent a polite reply thanking him for his interest, but explaining that his
would-be companion had reunited with an old beau.
The control and passionate personas fared the worst, with 103 and 90 replies
respectively. The attractive persona garnered more鈥�129 admirers in all.
But the woman with money came out top with 185 replies.
鈥淭his is very strange. It goes against everything I鈥檝e heard before,鈥� says
psychologist Irene Frieze of the University of Pittsburgh. 鈥淚鈥檓 curious about
the users of these sites.鈥�
So are men who look for partners on the Net a bunch of moneygrabbing,
passionless misfits? Strassberg agrees that the bulletin boards he studied may
attract an unusual clientele. But he thinks the explanation may be that Net
users are more educated and affluent, and are simply looking for someone of a
similar background.