Author Archives: Victor Karandashev

Personal Qualities That Are More Attractive for Love Than Our Looks

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Physical appearance and the way we look might matter for the first impression. However, other qualities, such as personality traits, are more likely to win people’s love. Many people pay much attention to appearances and quickly form a first impression based on a person’s outlook.

Many believe that our looks are what matter most in attracting the love of a potential partner. Yes, physical attraction is what people desire in a loved one. However, desirable personality traits are what matter most.

According to the surveys of heterosexual and homosexual partners, appearance and sexiness are only in the middle of the preferred characteristics of a partner. On the other hand, such personality traits as extraversion, intelligence, and agreeableness are higher than physical attraction as the qualities that women and men in different-sex and same-sex couples look for in a partner.

As co-founder of the dating app So Syncd, Jess Alderson says, we do prefer personality over looks. For example, in the sample of more than 1,000 users, almost 90% preferred certain personality traits over looks.

Why Agreeableness Is Desired for Love

Agreeableness is among the indicators of someone’s interpersonal skills. It characterizes how compassionate and caring people are. This personal quality plays an important role for both men and women in their initial preference for a date’s desirability. This trait is also a strong predictor of current and future relationship satisfaction and durability. For men as well as for women, physical attractiveness comes together with agreeableness in their desire for a love relationship. “Agreeableness is kind of a necessity,” says Greg Webster, a psychology professor at the University of Florida. In relationships, agreeableness, combined with other attractive traits, can bring the best out of people. See more about this research here.

The factor of similarity also plays a role. We feel attracted to others who share values similar to ours.

How does it work in the case of agreeableness? More agreeable people tend to see others as kind and friendly, finding them similar. This is why we match with people who have personalities similar to our own.

Why Similarity and Familiarity Matter for Love

We tend to look for similar and familiar others in our pursuit of love, not only in agreeableness but also in other personality traits, such as openness to a new experience and conscientiousness.

Partners with high similarity in the personality traits of conscientiousness and openness to a new experience are better in their ability to solve problems and manage daily tasks.

Similarity and familiarity are important in many other things (Berscheid & Reis, 1998; Orbuch & Sprecher, 2003). We also find attractive the other person who is physically and genetically similar to us, how close they live geographically to us, whether we belong to the same social groups, and whether we approve of their friends.

Why Some Differences Are Attractive for a Relationship

Despite the importance of similarities and familiarities in traits, personality differences might also be appealing for love.

Partners with complementary traits match well with each other, according to the observations of Jess Alderson, a co-founder of the dating app So Syncd.

“It makes sense that we’ve evolved to be attracted to people who at least have a certain amount of differences to ourselves. We make a stronger team and would be more likely to survive. But again, you need that kind of intimacy that draws you together.”

“We pair couples who have just enough similarities to form a strong connection, and then just enough differences to create that spark of excitement,” says Alderson.

“If you are too similar, it can be a little bit boring. And then if you’re too different, it can just not be that fun on a daily basis.”

It turns out that similarity and equality between partners are not necessarily the best things for a good relationship. And the dominance quality of one partner can be a good thing for love.

For example, social psychologists Angela Bryan, Greg Webster, and Amanda Mahaffey looked at socially, physically, and financially dominant people and the effect agreeableness had on their appeal (Bryan, Webster, & Mahaffey, 2011).

Researchers found that social, physical, and financial types of dominance are attractive to others. Each can provide a kind of protection or access to basic needs, like food and shelter, through to more desirable needs, like lavish lifestyles.

Yet, dominance traits can be used for good and bad:

“We can think of dominance as being turned inward towards a relationship or as being focused outward away from the relationship. What people want are partners who are socially, physically, or financially dominant, but not necessarily towards their partner,”

says Webster.

When dominance is mediated by agreeableness, it is a combination of qualities appealing to interpersonal attraction. “It’s one thing if you’re able to dominate other people, but are you willing to share those resources with your romantic partner?” For attractive partners, agreeableness accentuates the benefits of other personal qualities.

How Online Dating Changed Cross-Cultural Love and Relationships

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The last several decades have witnessed the emergence and extensive development of dating websites. This progress greatly changed the way partners meet, love, and how their relationships evolve.

How Dating Websites Emerged and Expanded

It may look surprising that the first dating websites came only in the 1990s. In 1995, Match.com went online. In the early 2000s, a new wave of dating sites like OKCupid came out. When Tinder came out in 2012, it changed dating even more. There are now more than one-third of marriages that begin online. This data, however, varies across cultures.

These websites have obviously had a significant influence on dating behavior. However, evidence is mounting that their impact is far more substantial. Interesting statistical data from research shows the variety of places and ways in which partners met each other over the last decades.

How Traditional Networks of Dating Work

The social networks associated with family, neighbors, friends, and acquaintances were the most prevalent sources of prospective dating partners. People are strongly connected to a small group of neighbors and only loosely connected to people who live far away. It turns out that these loose connections are very important.

Loose ties have traditionally played an important role in meeting partners. While most people were unlikely to date one of their best friends, they were much more likely to date someone from their group of friends, such as a friend of a friend. Men and women met their partners through their families, at church, through mutual friends, in bars, in educational institutions, at work, and so on.

The Modern Way of Online Dating

The networks of dating have changed with the onset of online dating. Nowadays, heterosexual couples meet through online dating, which is the second most popular method. It’s the most popular choice by far for homosexual couples.

Online dating has led to significant consequences, extending the pool of potential dating partners. “People who meet online tend to be complete strangers,” say Josue Ortega from the University of Essex in the U.K. and Philipp Hergovich from the University of Vienna in Austria, the authors of the recent study.

Online Dating Is Conducive to Intercultural Marriages

These new opportunities extended chances for intercultural relationships, love, and marriages. Some societies are more favorable for intercultural marriages than others.

The statistics of intercultural marriages in the United States of American present a good example for analysis. For instance, J. Ortega and P. Hergovich compared the rates of interracial marriages in the U.S. over the past several decades and found that the number of interracial marriages increased for some time, but the rates were still low.

However, the rates of increase in interracial marriages substantially changed at about the time that online dating became popular. The researchers say,

“It is intriguing that shortly after the introduction of the first dating websites in 1995, like Match.com, the percentage of new marriages created by interracial couples increased rapidly.”

When online dating became even more popular, this increase in interracial marriages became even steeper in the 2000s. Later, in 2014, the proportion of interracial marriages expanded again. “It is interesting that this increase occurred shortly after the creation of Tinder, considered the most popular online dating app,” researchers say.

Married Couples Who Meet Online Are More Stable

It is worth noting that, with about 50 million users, Tinder produces over 12 million matches daily. In the meantime, research into the strength of marriage has discovered some evidence that married couples who meet online have lower rates of marital breakup compared to those who meet in traditional settings.

Humor Helps Maintain Love Relationships

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Men and women tend to love humorous people and perceive them as more attractive. They feel attracted to those with a good sense of humor and consider humor a desirable trait in romantic partners during the early stages of relationships.

How important is humor in a relationship over time? It is possible that we not only perceive humorous people as attractive but also tend to perceive someone we like as humorous (Li et al., 2009). For example, when we are happy in a relationship, we find our partner funny, even though she or he may not be objectively that funny in the first place.

How a Recent Study Conducted

A recent study conducted by Kenneth Tan, an assistant professor of psychology at Singapore Management University, and his colleagues Bryan Choy, and Norman Li. showed that humor also plays a role in maintaining and strengthening relationships. Partners use jokes and funny stories to signal continued interest in each other and improve their relationship.

Kenneth Tan and his colleagues conducted a study with a sample of 108 couples who were involved in romantic relationships with an average duration of 18.27 months. The researchers asked partners to complete daily assessments for seven consecutive evenings, reporting their perceptions of humor within their relationships and their levels of relationship commitment, perceived partner commitment, and relationship satisfaction.

This way, researchers investigated how humor and relationship quality fluctuate within established romantic relationships on a day-to-day basis. They found that humor functions as a means to signal and maintain the interest of partners in a romantic relationship.

The Study Found Complex Relations Between Humor and Relationship Quality

Their findings demonstrated that on days when partners reported higher levels of commitment, perceived partner commitment, or relationship satisfaction, they also more frequently used humor in communication with their partners. Furthermore, positive relationship quality between partners on one day increases the use of humor and perception the next day. Thus, relationship quality in current interactions positively influences the use of humor in subsequent interactions. This way, they use humor to express their continued interest in an ongoing relationship.

On days where partners were more satisfied and committed to the relationship, they found their romantic partner more humorous, both on the same day and the next. On days when they were less satisfied and committed to their relationship, they found their partner less humorous, both on the same day and the next.

The study did not reveal gender differences in its findings. Both women and men tend to use humor to maintain interest and strengthen their relationships.

In conclusion, one might typically think that humor is more important in the early phase of relationships to establish attraction than in the later stage of the relationship. However, the study found that humor did not show stronger effects on relationships that were shorter in length.

Humor, as well as smiling and laughter, improve our love relationship at any stage of a relationship.

Love Songs Are Not Universal Across Cultures

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Music seems a universal language of love, and love songs are cross-culturally recognizable and understandable. The writer John Anderer illustrates that it might be right to refer to the iconic song “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” a song by English rock band Joy Division, released in June 1980.

Is Music a Universal Language Across Cultures?

Researchers from Yale University generally agree with the statement that music is universal. Their research revealed that, with the notable exception of love songs, people all over the world can recognize the themes found in songs and music regardless of national boundaries or cultural backgrounds.

As Samuel Mehr, an assistant professor adjunct at the Yale Child Study Center and a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Auckland, says:

All around the world, people sing in similar ways. Music is deeply rooted in human social interaction.

Researchers studied over 5,000 people from 49 nations, asking them to listen to 14-second snippets of vocals from songs originating from many cultures around the world. The participants were people from a variety of cultures around the world, including individuals from relatively small cultural communities.

Researchers asked participants to listen to the songs in 31 various languages. Then they asked to rank how likely it is that each sample of music belongs to one of four musical types: lullabies, dance, “healing” music, or love music.

The authors conclude that listeners’ ratings were largely accurate, consistent with one another, and not explained by their linguistic or geographical proximity to the singer. This result showed that musical diversity is underlain by universal psychological phenomena.”

The lead author, Lidya Yurdum, explains that

“Our minds have evolved to listen to music. It is not a recent invention. But if we only study songs from the western world and listeners from the western world, we can only draw conclusions about the western world — not humans in general.”

What Kind of Music Do People Easier Recognize?

Results of the study showed that people from various cultures around the world relatively easily recognize lullabies and dance music and, to a lesser degree, “healing” music. However, they showed the least ability to identify love songs.

These are surprising results. Lidya Yurdum, a graduate student at the University of Amsterdam who works as a research assistant at the Yale Child Study Center, explains the results this way:

“One reason for this could be that love songs may be a particularly fuzzy category that includes songs that express happiness and attraction, but also sadness and jealousy. Listeners who heard love songs from neighboring countries and in languages related to their own actually did a little better, likely because of the familiar linguistic and cultural clues.”

What Can Our Body Language Tell Us About Love and Relationship?

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The popular scientific and self-help publications widely advise us about our body language and what it tells us about our feelings, attitudes, and love. How valid are all these advices?

Subtle facial and bodily movements are often cited as giveaways in today’s media, whether it’s the tabloids or social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. They claim that our body language says a lot about us, our partner, and our relationships.

Do these pop media messages about body language have any basis in reality or the science of nonverbal communication?

What the Science of Nonverbal Communication Reveals About Body Language

The group of researchers from the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and their colleagues from other universities, YALAN J. FRIDLUND, MILES L. PATTERSON, AND CARLOS CRIVELLI, say about several misconceptions about nonverbal communication.

The authors summarize these misconceptions in their recent blog on the Character and Context Blog.

They say that unfortunately, distinguishing between science and pseudoscience can be challenging at times, and it is frequently the latter that garners greater attention and clicks. So, they used their discretion to rectify the situation.

The Concept of “Body Language” Lacks Empirical Evidence and Scientific Support

Are people’s true thoughts and feelings conveyed through their posture, gaze, touch, tone of voice, and faces? There is an entire industry that promotes the notion that “you can see it in their body language,” but “it” can refer to a variety of things, such as whether someone loves or hates us, whether they are potential clients, innocent defendants, or foreign terrorists.

Are there any reliable indicators? If there was true body language, it would function like a language! Words in language have fairly precise meanings. “Lava” refers to molten rock emitted by volcanoes, and “eat” refers to putting food in our mouths. The words can also be combined to form sentences, such as “Aardvarks are quadrupeds.”

However, things are different in the science of nonverbal communication. There aren’t the kinds of precise meanings we see in language outside of gestures like OK signs and extended third fingers. If you ask a friend about the weather outside and she scowls, it could mean one of three things:

  • (a) It’s lousy outside;
  • (b) It’s so lousy outside that it’s ridiculous to ask; or
  • (c) She’s still upset from the argument yesterday and doesn’t want to talk to you, especially about the weather.

Which of these is it? We could look for other nonverbal cues, but the kicker is that we almost always have to use language—real language—to be sure: “Hey, what’s with the face?”

Our Personal Space Is Not Stable Across Time and Situations

It irritates us when people don’t “give us our space.” It’s a comforting notion that we have a secure, insulating personal space that we guard against outsiders, but we constantly violate it! Friends are allowed to be closer than strangers, and children are allowed to be closer than friends. It’s common to want no space at all with romantic partners. In some situations, a near approach can be intimate, but in others, it can be sexual harassment. You love being close to your children, but you’re also content to have them out of sight for a while when they misbehave. Furthermore, the boundaries established with other people are influenced by their gaze, posture, body orientation, and facial expressions, as well as their distance from you.

Electronic media makes it clear that emotional closeness does not imply physical closeness. What do you think of two individuals who are having video calls with people who are halfway across the world while seated a short distance apart in a coffee shop? To whom is closer?

Our Faces Do Not Reveal Our Inner Emotions

What about the posters on every preschool wall that show cartoonish faces with words like “Happy,” “Sad,” “Angry,” and “Scared” underneath? Everyone has been taught that certain expressions indicate that the people making them are experiencing specific emotions. But is that correct? Obviously not. It makes a difference whether the big smile is from a child at a birthday party or from a scammer looking for money. A person who approaches you with a tearful pouty face to announce, “My child has cancer,” may make the same face the following week and say, “She doesn’t have cancer after all!”

What do faces do if they don’t generally express inner emotion? If you ask someone, “How was the movie?” and he smiles, it is because of the movie. Faces are usually about things—things you know, things you want, and things you want from others. The “angry” face on the posters signals others to confess or leave; the “sad” face receives sympathy and hugs; and the “scared” face declares, “I give up.” People in different societies make different faces in ways that are very different from the preschool posters.

People’s Bodies and Faces Cannot Reveal Whether or Not They Are Lying

We’ve heard the expression “the body never lies”? That, of course, is a lie, but one reason people cling to it is that the truth about lies makes them feel so vulnerable. There are no telltale nonverbal signs of lying, as non-verbal communication research has demonstrated for decades. People may fidget, blink more or less, avert their gaze, twitch their lips or noses, stammer, and make fleeting facial “microexpressions,” but these are all symptoms of stress, not deception. People may exhibit these symptoms while lying, but it is not because of it.

And, contrary to popular belief, guilty people are often less stressed than innocent people. A habitual liar may be far less concerned about being accused again. Innocent people may experience overwhelming stress not because they are lying but because they are afraid of being wrongfully accused of it, resent the fact that they are suspected of it, or are simply nervous about being confronted with it.

In Real Life, Context and Culture Matter

So, what does nonverbal behavior indicate? It depends, as we hope we’ve made clear. You can only understand people’s nonverbal behavior if you know who the interactants are, where they are, what they’re saying to each other, and what culture they come from. When people succumb to the simplistic pseudoscience of “body language,” the stakes are high—in relationships, in the boardroom and courtroom, and in international affairs.

So, the reality of nonverbal communication is not so easy. It is more complex. It depends on the content, context, and culture in which people communicate their emotions and relationships.

Why People Love Romantic Comedies

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Why are romantic comedies so popular among people? Do their narratives reflect men’s and women’s love?

Romantic comedies, also known as rom-coms, are among the most popular film genres. However, they have often been criticized for not being serious enough and for distorting people’s perceptions of love.

Anthropology of Romantic Comedies

Marianne Gabrielsson, a student from the School of Global Studies at University of Gothenburg studied these questions from an anthropological perspective. She explored:

  • Why do people watch romcoms?
  • In what way do people embody love as portrayed in romcoms?
  • How can we relate people’s perceptions of love to the romcom genre?

What the Study Revealed

Thus, according to the recent study conducted by Marianne Gabrielsson,

  • Romantic comedies have psychopharmacologic functions in the sense of escapism.
  • People embody romcoms in terms of EPIC love, disappointment, fear, non-realistic demands, resignation, false happiness, or joy.
  • Romantic comedies are often negatively loaded with ideals, traditionalism, stereotypes, and conformity.

The Functions that Romantic Comedies Have in People’ Lives

The concept of escapism serves as an indicator of underlying societal issues, wherein romantic comedies are often depicted as a potential solution rather than a contributing factor to these problems.

Paradoxically, romantic comedies present this solution in a stigmatized, negative tone, causing feelings of shame, blame, and belittleness, contextualizing romcoms as a ‘guilty pleasure’ for the female consumer.

As a result of this paradox, culture continues to rewrite cultural norms and reinforce stereotypes, reproducing the outdated idea of the Other. This way, romantic comedies divide people into intellectual, serious, and pragmatic consumers and the rest: the naive and stupid consumers of banal and superficial depictions of love.

This suggests a shift in the focus of discourse from a widely shared sentiment of love to a more practical and rational approach.

Nevertheless, the study found that love is related to pragmatism, disappointment, and love always being for someone else. The author conducted the interviews that revealed a prevalent views of love as aspirations, dreams, and a desire for a love that transcends societal norms and expectations.

Conclusions of the Study

The author concludes that the complexity exhibited by romantic comedies presents a promising path for future academic research. Within this realm, three specific aspects have emerged as particularly intriguing subjects of study:

  • 1) The phenomenon of culture consumption encompasses various forms such as film, literature, music, and social media. And it has its significant impact on society.
  • 2) The persistent practice of rewriting culture is an ongoing process that shapes and reshapes societal norms and values.
  • 3) Within the field of anthropology, there exists a notable gap in the discourse surrounding the potential universality of love as a human experience.

Mobility of Intimate Relationships in Online Dating Apps

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Online dating applications facilitate interpersonal connections between individuals, enabling them to pursue various motivations, such as seeking sexual encounters, romantic relationships, emotional intimacy, or other forms of interpersonal connections.

Many women and men feel ambiguity regarding the opportunities associated with online dating apps. They frequently do not know exactly what they hope to gain from using a dating app. They might anticipate a connection that develops into a committed monogamous relationship, but these relationships can change over time and are flexible. Users can meet for sex, become friends, or friends with benefits, and possibly form a couple before deciding to become friends again without engaging in sexual activity with one another.

Andrea Newerla, a researcher from Paris Lodron University Salzburg in Salzburg, Austria, and Jenny van Hooff, a researcher from Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom, analyzed the dating app user experience in Germany and the United Kingdom.

They conducted an in-depth analysis of interviews with online app users in the United Kingdom (van Hooff, 2020) and Germany (Newerla, 2021), and their findings were quite intriguing. Researchers performed a thematic analysis on the data collected from both cultural samples.

In a previous article, I described the summary of their research findings about the ambiguities and opportunities men and women experience using dating apps.

In this article, we’ll look into the users’ perceptions of the mobility of intimate relationships.

Experiences of Mobility in Intimate Relationships

For many users, dating practices are marked by ambivalence as the potentialities and possibilities afforded by dating apps emerge as spaces for new forms of intimacy. Normativities are challenged, and spaces are opened up for forms of love and desire that cannot be subsumed under the ideal of the romantic or partnership model in their pursuit and realization of these potentials.

Friendships formed through dating apps, as previously stated, are an important experience for some of our participants. And the descriptions clearly show that these relationships, which were initially defined by sexual attraction, are malleable and can evolve into new forms of intimacy.

Matteo, a 34-year-old man, for example, began using dating apps in 2015. His main goal was to find a romantic partner:

‘I was not as sex-positive as I am now, and society was not at the point we are now. So the main goal was to find a partner’.

Matteo found himself in new cities more frequently as a result of geographical changes, and apps assisted him in meeting new people. He was open to casual sex at this point, but not to the possibility of a romantic relationship if the person was ‘right for him’. As he describes in his relationship with Beate, he developed a variety of ways to be intimate with people in Berlin, blurring the boundaries of friendship and couplehood:

‘It was only sexual, but there was a connection with Beate. She was a person that I was liking. When we started to play [sexually], I realized that I really enjoy this, the motion of playfulness and connection when it’s in consent. It’s clear what we are there for. (…) and from this moment on me and Beate started to have a sex relationship which also developed something more complex. I also developed feelings for Beate that were not immediately mutual (…) Beate was not interested in a relationship that was more romantic, but I was. But we found a common ground and we have been experimental quite a lot.’

(Matteo, M 34, German study).

Beate eventually fell in love with someone else, and Matteo became friends with her. ‘We are still in a good connection,’ Matteo says of this development. It was unclear at the time of the interview whether Beate’s new relationship is open to additional sex partners. Matteo describes the possibility of him and Beate sharing this level of sexual intimacy again. However, Matteo says in the interview that it could remain a platonic friendship without sexual physicality. It’s clear that he sees this intimate relationship as a process, that he’s open to its evolution because he likes Beate and wants to see how their relationship develops in the future.

Here Is How Rob Describes his Relationships on Dating Apps

Rob, who has used dating apps on and off since Tinder debuted in 2012, explained how the connections made on apps evolve and develop based on the circumstances:

‘Being on Tinder you can have a few girls that you’re messaging or seeing or whatever, and it’s actually good because you know you’re not going to get married, because you live in different cities, or you’re too different, but you still have this connection, when you’re bored you can chat, or sext, and there’s no expectation. I don’t know how you’d define it, but I’ve had a few of those kind of relationships, and they’re good because you’re both on the same page’.

(Rob, M 34, UK study).

Rob describes a liminal relationship that maintains an emotional and sexual connection but will not develop into a committed couple relationship. These relationships defy traditional heteronormative conventions, but they are meaningful to participants and are not time-limited. While these types of relationships are often portrayed negatively in popular culture as ‘breadcrumbing’ (sporadic contact with no follow-through), for Rob, they are meaningful ties that do not fit into normative understandings of relationships.

Here Is How Mona Experiences her Relationships on Dating Apps

Mona can easily organize various dates based on her immediate needs thanks to the variety of relationship forms available on dating apps. This is sometimes casual sex, but she prefers it when a relationship develops. Some dates have become friendships. There was no sexual contact in these cases, but they enjoyed each other’s company. However, these friendships are also physical: one friend, for example, comes over on a regular basis to cuddle and watch Netflix. She does not prioritize romantic relationships and emphasizes the importance of friendships throughout the interview:

‘It doesn’t have to be the romantic partner you wake up next to, it has to be a person you just get along with. (…) This realisation that I don’t have to expect a partner to fulfil all my needs, but that friendships are also a relationship that also fulfils needs like a romantic relationship, that was then for me like: bam. I communicate much more openly about this with my friends and also with the partners I am currently seeing.’

(Mona, F 33, German study)

Mona was dating four people at the time, all of whom she met through dating apps. Here, the apps have assisted her in finding people who think and live similarly to her, as they are all interested in multiple relationships, identify as polyamorous, and have openly communicated their relationship status through the apps. Their experiences have allowed them to communicate more openly about their own needs.

Here Is How Alex Explains her Relationships on Dating Apps

People came up with creative ways to use dating apps. Sexual relationships turned into friendships or, in Alex’s case, a professional network. Even though he hasn’t found the long-term relationship he was looking for through dating apps, his experiences show how relationships can change:

‘A long period on Tinder would be six plus dates, usually it doesn’t go anywhere. Usually relationships are sexual. I’d always chat to multiple people at once and occasionally see multiple partners at once. Most encounters have been enjoyable and interesting, some I’m still friends with, one is now our company solicitor, but most I don’t speak to.’

(Alex, M 29, UK study)

Alex is a marketer, and his professional and personal networks frequently cross and overlap. He describes it positively, saying that sexual encounters evolve as dates take on new roles in his life. The normative categorization of romantic and sexual relationships does not apply to Alex’s experience with dating apps, and the normative hierarchy of intimacy does not currently apply to his personal relationships. Alex also emphasizes the importance of transitioning into and out of different relationship forms as key moments of communication and connection in and of themselves.

Challenges to Being Open in Online Dating Apps

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Online dating apps assist people to connect with each other, and individuals pursue their own motivations, whether for sex, love, intimacy, or any other kind of interpersonal motivation.

Do people use dating apps for love or for sex? Many men and women experience the ambivalences and possibilities of being involved in dating with online apps. They often do not have a clear idea of what they expect from using a dating app. They might expect a connection leading to a committed monogamous relationship, but these processes are mobile and flexible over time. Users can meet for sex, become friends, then friends with benefits, possibly form a couple, and later they decide to be friends again who do not have sex with each other, and so on.

These processes of communication in online apps are not clearly dichotomous, either for love or for sex. Contemporary intimate relationships are mobile and flexible and cannot be simply categorized as for love or for sex.

Andrea Newerla, the researcher from Paris Lodron University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria, and Jenny van Hooff, the researcher from Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK, completed an analysis of the users’ experience with dating apps in Germany and the UK.

They conducted an in-depth analysis of interviews they administered among online app users in the UK (van Hooff, 2020), and Germany (Newerla, 2021), which showed quite interesting findings. Researchers did a thematic analysis of their data in both cultural samples.

Ambiguities and Opportunities in Dating App Practices

 Researchers revealed that using dating apps presents participants with both ambiguities and opportunities, particularly in “being open.”

The study reveals a tension between participants’ romantic love ideas and the more fluid, undefined relationships found on dating apps. Alternative relationship practices, such as monogamous romantic models, have become available to users who initially didn’t consider them. Participants often struggle to articulate what they perceive as an important intimate encounter.

In interviews, ambiguities and mobility in intimate relationship development are not seen negatively. For example, 26-year-old Thorsten, who uses dating apps to meet women, describes dating as a process rather than a rigid one. He enters a polyamorous constellation with a woman, meeting other people and not limiting themselves. Despite feeling insecure, Thorsten sees potential in insecure experiences:

“I also find insecurity an exciting thing. I know so many people who are security people. […] I don’t want to be so obsessed with everything always being safe. I just find it much more interesting to live with such openness, to live with such contingency. Of course it’s not always nice, it can also be very difficult, but that’s precisely why I think it’s good to learn to endure it, to be able to live with it, to be able to deal with it. And not to let it limit or dominate you, but to recognise it, to articulate it, to be able to talk about it and to live with it.“

(Thorsten, M 26, German study)

As one can see, Thorsten enjoys mobile dating’s openness, allowing for experimentation, intimacy development, and personal growth, while others find it ambiguous and uncertain, offering opportunities for self-reflection.

Mark, after a relationship breakdown, has used dating apps for four years, navigating casual and committed relationships and highlighting the app’s potential for offline connections:

‘It opens up possibilities. So first of all I’m thinking if I want a long-term relationship with this person, and if not I think if there are other possibilities. but that’s not a bad thing I think, we live in a world that’s too po faced about sex. There’s something about Tinder that suggests that people are more open to whatever might happen. If you’re on Tinder you’re in a contract with each other, sex is a possibility, in a way that doesn’t happen outside of online dating. I’d never heard of polyamory before I went on Tinder, but now you can be open about seeing multiple people, rather than lying. That can only be a good thing.’

(Mark, M 32, UK study)

As we can see, Mark embraces the potential for diverse relationships through apps, including polyamory, as he adjusts his expectations to nonnormative forms, fostering positive connections.

Susanne, a 35-year-old polyamorous woman, shares her experiences of recognizing the romantic ideal and embracing multiple relationships, primarily using dating apps for sex but also expressing openness.

‘I think it’s always a question of how you use it yourself and I usually go in there with the feeling of ok I’m open for what’s coming now. There are phases where I say ok now I only want it for sex. And I always find this ’only’ difficult. So I used it for sex. (…) I always call them ’regular sex partners’, because I don’t find one night stands so desirable myself, but they happen and that’s okay. But I would tend to be more interested in meeting more often and building up something sexually. So I’m actually open to that, but I always waver back and forth. For example, when I don’t have the emotional capacity to get involved with someone. If I’m processing a break-up or something and honestly want to leave myself the space for it.’

(Susanne, F 34, German study)

Susanne’s intimacy practices are broader, fluid, and mobile, embracing openness and the uncertainty of relationships beyond sexual experience. She welcomes this openness and views it as an opportunity to engage in diverse forms of relationships.

Irfan uses dating apps to meet potential partners outside his circle, experiencing freedom and short-term relationships while being relieved of long-term commitment pressure. Success comes from short-term connections:

‘Successful encounters have been girls that I’ve continued to date for several months after meeting. Really nice, genuine people that I enjoy spending time with. Removing the expectations that you’re going to get married or stay together means you can actually enjoy being with them.’

(Irfan, M 28, UK study)

Dating apps have broadened relationships beyond normative coupling, valuing connection over external expectations and transforming the way relationships are valued.

Mona discusses the development of intimate relationships through mobile dating, particularly through dating apps, as highlighted by a 33-year-old woman in an interview:

‘I know a lot more of my friends here in Berlin through Tinder, and it never developed into something amorous, but more like: ‘hey, we get along really well, we text all the time, we want to meet up, that’s really cool, but there’s just nothing.’ (…) Really good friendships have developed on Tinder and also good conversations. (…) In general, I don’t have any expectations, except to somehow get to know someone who is somehow quite nice. Someone who seems nice, okay, just a good evening, whatever it turns out to be. Whether it turns into friendship, as it does with some people because they understand each other well, but there’s nothing interpersonal about it, or a one-night stand or something longer-term. That is absolutely open to me. (…) Everything can happen, nothing has to.’

(Mona, F 33, German study)

Mona, like other participants, does not view openness as threatening in mobile dating. She sees it as a way for relationships to develop, varying depending on the person and time. This mobility in relationships is discussed in the next section.

Modern Intimate Practices in Online Dating Apps

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According to previous research on online dating app practices, there are two groups of users. Some are seeking casual sex, while others are seeking a committed relationship, as an imposed normative framework suggests.

Intimate Relationships in Online-Mediated Cultures

Sociologists have long discussed the impact of technology on personal life in the context of online dating apps. Initially, they welcomed the internet’s emancipatory potential, predicting increased safety, control, and freedom. The internet’s romantic freedoms have made intimate relationships less traditional, thus weakening patriarchal sexual and gender orders.

However, some authors have negative and pessimistic views on the emergence of dating apps. They believe that such mobile services can damage intimate relationships.

Social networking and dating apps reclaimed the popularity of Christopher Lasch’s ‘ ideas of a culture of narcissism’ in the late 1970s. (Lasch, 1979) Increasing individualization and excessive consumerism have led to personal relationships crumbling due to emotional weight. It is asserted that technology has damaged interpersonal skills. The technologies prevent men and women from being fully present in relationships due to phone and internet-mediated distractions.

How Dating Apps Divide Love and Sex

The technological tools of dating apps allow us to organize intimate contacts by using rational procedures and question catalogs to calculate match probabilities. These tools have evolved from online dating to mobile dating, reducing physical and digital space. Many researchers focus on how people use dating apps and whether this challenges traditional commitment patterns.

According to some evidence, many users use online apps to engage in casual sex in addition to looking for a committed partnership. Mobile dating facilitates temporal, goal-oriented encounters for the easy establishment of relationships.

On the other hand, ‘real’ or authentic love seems possible only within romantic relationships, which some authors present as something to be preserved and protected. It is contrasted with casual sex as a commodified social form (Illouz, 2020) that accumulates capital in the form of multiple sexual partners.

Dating apps can help organize casual sex, avoiding long-term commitment. These sex-focused practices and relationships seem to be neoliberal, focusing on pleasure and satisfaction without real romance. These practices are aimless and fluid. They lack the goal of romantic relationships.

Casual sex, for many, is the choice of non-choice. Sexual partners relate to each other without pursuing a specific goal, such as initiating a romantic love relationship.

Some researchers suggest expanding traditional understandings of relationship formation and development to include the changes in interaction afforded by mobile dating.

How Our Personal Values Affect Our Love and Romantic Relationships

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Men and women tend to attribute the problems to their partner’s shortcomings when they encounter difficulties in their romantic relationships. Sometimes, we may acknowledge that our personal values, individual characteristics, and behaviors also affect the quality of our relationships. Is it really possible?

By the way, it is important to keep the importance of values in mind when we look for a suitable match on dating websites. Recent studies have highlighted the considerable difficulties that partners encounter when they hold opposing views on contentious political matters, as reported by Afifi et al. (2020).

What do people value in their love and romantic relationships?

How Can Our Personal Values Affect Our Relationships?

Our personal values play an important role in our romantic relationships. Could it be the case that some types of values imperil our chances of success and happiness in our love and romantic relationships?

A recent study by Reine van der Wal from Utrecht University and her colleagues in The Netherlands presented empirical support for the significance of personal values as influential factors in the functioning of romantic relationships.

The authors were interested in theoretical inquiries regarding the impact of personal values on the functioning of romantic relationships. A recent study examined how personal values predict the quality of romantic relationships. Researchers explored the role of pro-relational attitudes, communal strength, intrinsic motivation for relationships, and entitlement as potential mediating factors.

What Studies Showed

In a series of five studies, the authors revealed that people who exhibited a greater inclination towards self-transcendence values, specifically benevolence and universalism, experienced higher levels of quality in their romantic relationships.

Pro-relational attitudes, communal strength, and intrinsic relationship motivation also function as mediating factors.

In the fifth study, which used a dyadic analysis, the authors revealed that self-transcendence values primarily affect a person’s own relationship quality while having minimal impact on the relationship quality of their partner.

In summary, this research highlights how important it is to understand the impact of personal values on our love and romantic relationships. The findings of this study suggest that individuals who strongly endorse benevolent, self-transcendent values tend to have higher-quality relationships.

The results of this important study may potentially contribute to our better understanding of why certain relationships thrive while others deteriorate. The findings of this study provide a basis for future investigations into the influence of values on the functioning and well-being of partners in romantic relationships.