This post makes a general assumption that the point of a dating profile is about signaling qualities. I have heard it argued previously that the emotional experience of reading the profile is more central for the decision about whether or not a women get interested in swipping to match.
Can you give an example of how the emotional experience would be separated from signaling qualities? E.g. I think having a funny profile is good, but that’s pretty tied up in signaling a sense of humor.
Chosing images for displaying emotions is quite different then chosing them for displaying things in the background. Having photos that show different emotions instead of having every photo display you with the same emotions can increase emotional impact.
Generally, the goal of “stand out and produce an emotional response” is very different then “signal that you are at least average in many different domains”.
To try to make your claim precise: given two profiles:
Ugly guy in a dilapidated frat house with stains all over his clothes but making a lot of interesting expressions
Basic generic guy smiling in standard locations
I predict the second one to do better.
Maybe you are saying that, in addition to being average in the domains I list, you should also make interesting facial expressions? That doesn’t seem crazy to me, though I don’t know a lot of evidence about it either way.
This post makes a general assumption that the point of a dating profile is about signaling qualities. I have heard it argued previously that the emotional experience of reading the profile is more central for the decision about whether or not a women get interested in swipping to match.
Can you give an example of how the emotional experience would be separated from signaling qualities? E.g. I think having a funny profile is good, but that’s pretty tied up in signaling a sense of humor.
Chosing images for displaying emotions is quite different then chosing them for displaying things in the background. Having photos that show different emotions instead of having every photo display you with the same emotions can increase emotional impact.
Generally, the goal of “stand out and produce an emotional response” is very different then “signal that you are at least average in many different domains”.
To try to make your claim precise: given two profiles:
Ugly guy in a dilapidated frat house with stains all over his clothes but making a lot of interesting expressions
Basic generic guy smiling in standard locations
I predict the second one to do better.
Maybe you are saying that, in addition to being average in the domains I list, you should also make interesting facial expressions? That doesn’t seem crazy to me, though I don’t know a lot of evidence about it either way.