One second is all it takes to form an attraction in online dating

ONLINE daters take only one second to decide on a potential partner, according to research.

However, upon meeting their match, it takes them 42 minutes, on average, to decide if they want a second date.

The research on nearly 1,000 online daters, carried out by cognitive psychologists at the Universities of Lincoln and Swansea, found that at least one full second of viewing a person’s profile was needed to make a decision.

If the view time was limited to less than one second, the user was less likely to match with a prospective partner, the experts found.

To understand the decision-making processes of daters, real-life dating app situations were recreated in an experimental setting and 898 participants viewed mocked-up dating profiles with basic information visible – such as a photo and the person’s age and name.

First, the researchers gave the users unlimited viewing time of the profiles, and timed how long it took them to make a decision on a potential suitor.

They then reduced the viewing time until they found it did not differ from the results of the unlimited time experiment – only taking users around one second to make a decision.

The researchers, who carried out the study to academic standards for the online dating platform eharmony, also conducted experiments to assess the most important factors and dealbreakers for daters.

Initially, participants were shown a dating profile with relevant dealbreakers visible, such as smoking status, then they were shown another profile with this information removed.

Appearance-based factors came out on top as the biggest considerations, such as age (65 per cent), weight (54 per cent), and height (46 per cent).

When split by gender, the biggest turn-off for men in a partner was smoking, with 65 per cent opting for non-smokers while around two thirds of women (67 per cent) selected location as their key priority.

The researchers also found a partner who wanted a pet was an even bigger draw for women than a partner who wanted a child (42 per cent versus 39 per cent).

Dr Robin Kramer, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Lincoln, said: “Though nuanced, at the core, the research suggests Britons like to make informed decisions – the more information they have, the better they can judge potential compatibility.”