That link demonstrates the opposite of what you claim, as far as I can see.
The median 23-year-old man sets 18 years as the least possible age for a match, whereas the median 48-year-old man sets 32 years for the same. This effect is much smaller if you see who people write messages to, but it’s still there (see the red in the bottom right corner of the relevant graph).
Imagine asking a lot of men of different ages if, all other things being equal, they’d prefer a 16-year-old woman (assuming the men are from somewhere the age of consent is less than that—tweak if necessary) or a 26-year-old one. Do you really believe that many more men from any given age range would choose the former? (Heck, I would choose the latter, and I’m 24.)
I suspect that the difference between messaging behavior and the minimum age setting is related to the fact that those settings are publicly available. That adds a signaling component to the game, and for 48-year-old straight males I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be the dominant one: I don’t have any actual data here, but it seems likely that a middle-aged man setting the age of consent as his threshold sends a clear “dirty old man” signal that a 32yo threshold wouldn’t. Not a signal that a hypothetical dirty old man wants to send, I think; meanwhile, you can send messages to whoever you like, and large-scale messaging preferences are opaque to everyone but password holders. Actually, messaging someone below your nominal age limit might send a weak positive signal: “I like you enough to make an exception”.
The smaller of the effects discussed is probably genuine, though.
The median 23-year-old man sets 18 years as the least possible age for a match, whereas the median 48-year-old man sets 32 years for the same. This effect is much smaller if you see who people write messages to, but it’s still there (see the red in the bottom right corner of the relevant graph).
Imagine asking a lot of men of different ages if, all other things being equal, they’d prefer a 16-year-old woman (assuming the men are from somewhere the age of consent is less than that—tweak if necessary) or a 26-year-old one. Do you really believe that many more men from any given age range would choose the former? (Heck, I would choose the latter, and I’m 24.)
I suspect that the difference between messaging behavior and the minimum age setting is related to the fact that those settings are publicly available. That adds a signaling component to the game, and for 48-year-old straight males I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be the dominant one: I don’t have any actual data here, but it seems likely that a middle-aged man setting the age of consent as his threshold sends a clear “dirty old man” signal that a 32yo threshold wouldn’t. Not a signal that a hypothetical dirty old man wants to send, I think; meanwhile, you can send messages to whoever you like, and large-scale messaging preferences are opaque to everyone but password holders. Actually, messaging someone below your nominal age limit might send a weak positive signal: “I like you enough to make an exception”.
The smaller of the effects discussed is probably genuine, though.
okCupid data. Of interest is the third graph.