The effect of a status symbol on success in online dating: an
experimental study (data paper)
Abstract
Evolutionary psychology suggests that women and men differ in their
mating strategies. We operationalized a central claim of evolutionary
psychology by manipulating social status of profiles at a dating
website: one group of profiles was depicted with a luxury sports car
(high status) and second group without car (low status). Six profile
were set up (3 female, 3 male) for each of the two groups. Two type of
response variables were collected: Whether a “match” occurred
(n=3515), and whether a message was sent to the profile (n=1548). Beauty
and hip-waist-ratio of straw persons, and age of contacting individuals
were recorded. Given strong effect sizes, large sample size, and high
interest in human mating, this data set should be of interest for
applied researchers in human mating and social psychology.