Dating site misdirects Cupid’s arrow

LONDON: A leading dating website has admitted toying with lovelorn users by misleading them about their compatibility with potential partners in order to test its technology.

OkCupid admitted that it employed psychological experiments, similar to the controversial tests carried out by Facebook on its users, to improve the performance of the algorithm it deploys to determine the suitability of a possible couple.

When users were told that “bad matches” – based on a mathematical formula created by the company incorporating people’s ambitions, interests and desires – were good matches, they were more inclined to act as if there was a spark between them.

Christian Rudder, one of the company’s founders, admitted telling people who were bad matches (30 percent) they had a compatibility score of 90 percent.

The results suggested that opposites attract when people believe they are similar. He wrote in a blog: “We asked: does the displayed match percentage cause more than just that first message – does the mere suggestion cause people to actually like each other?

“As far as we can measure, yes, it does. When we tell people they are a good match, they act as if they are. Even when they should be wrong for each other.”

OkCupid reversed the trick, telling people who were a 90 percent match for each other that they were a 30 percent match.

Those people still engaged in lengthy e-mail exchanges, confirming that OkCupid’s algorithm was essentially sound.

In his blog, titled We Experiment on Human Beings! he apologised, and said: “But guess what, everybody: if you use the internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That’s how websites work.”