The psychology behind pics for dating apps
U of S student’s research shows gender trends for dating app photos
Research conducted by a grad student from the University of Saskatchewan’s psychology department says males and females take selfies for online dating profiles differently because of mental tendencies created through thousands of years of evolution.
Jennifer Sedgewick’s research, titled ‘Presenting Your Best Self(ie): The Influence of Gender on Vertical Orientation of Selfies on Tinder,’ examined photos from more than 550 profiles on the popular dating app Tinder.
According to Sedgewick, a psychology grad student, multiple psychological factors contribute to a preferred selfie. Her research focused on viewing perspectives on the vertical axis.
“When (the selfie) is specific to something like a mate attraction context — say, if you’re putting it on Tinder — that’s something more specific,” Sedgewick said. “That’s when you can actually say, ‘Well, people who are uploading pictures probably want to be perceived favourably by the opposite sex.’ ”
Typically, selfies taken by men were from a lower perspective to make them look taller and more powerful, and selfies taken by women were from a higher perspective to make them seem smaller and “more feminine,” Sedgewick said.
Another strategy Sedgewick observed was the tilting of the head to force those perspectives — men tended to tilt their heads back slightly to appear taller and accentuate a strong jawline, and women would more often tilt their heads forward to appear smaller and draw attention to their eyes.
“To perceive something as powerful, there has to be some type of cue — and that tends to be height,” Sedgewick said, speaking from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.
The physical traits of greater height (relative to the observer) and a strong jawline are just a couple of things females psychologically tend to find more masculine and attractive in males due to cultural gender norms. In return, a smaller stature relative to the observer and larger eyes are things that are culturally more attractive in females.
It’s one of the reasons Tinder was chosen for the project besides its popularity, Sedgewick said.
When the research was conducted in 2016, Tinder profiles did not have a section to list height and weight.
Other projects examining dating apps and websites, Sedgewick noted, determined that men who “adhere to masculine gender norms” were prone to over-exaggerate their height to appear taller and women who adhere to feminine gender norms would under-exaggerate their weight to seem smaller.
Because this research is only a “content analysis” and not an experiment, Sedgewick said it can’t conclude a definitive reason as to why people are making these choices — but those choices are still happening.
“When you are taking a picture of yourself, you can generally look at it and think ‘this is attractive’ or ‘no, I don’t look good’ — but you don’t really think about why,” Sedgewick said.
That’s when you can actually say, ‘Well, people who are uploading pictures probably want to be perceived favourably by the opposite sex.’