Natalie Tilton
PSY-220-GC
Essay #2
I used to be on Tinder when I first moved to Virginia last year. I actually met my
boyfriend, of one year as of Saturday, on Tinder. Before Michael, my boyfriend, I had generally
a bad experience online dating. Michael was the first guy to actually take me out on a date to
dinner, instead of just “hanging out” and leaving after around two hours. In this essay I will be
analyzing my own experiences through the Social Psychology ideas of interpersonal attraction,
stereotypes, social cognition, and self-presentation.
Interpersonal attraction is “why people like or dislike each other” (Branscombe & Baron,
224). A big part of interpersonal attraction is physical beauty. Physical beauty, I think, is not a
major thing in relationships, I tend to care more about personality and humor. However, physical
beauty plays a huge part in online dating, because the limited information you are given is
mostly pictures of the person. I have seen people I know who use Tinder doing what is called
“speed-swiping”. “Speed-swiping” is when you swipe through Tinder quickly only looking at
one or two photos of the person before deciding to swipe left or right, often without even looking
at their bio for more information. Physical beauty is what people see first on online dating apps
because it is usually the photos with a tiny part of the person’s bio in the bottom. Similarity is a
enormous part of interpersonal attraction, similar attitudes held by different people. A person’s
bio in a dating app is extremely important because it shows attitudes they hold that are important
enough, or what they think will attract people the most, to put in their bio. I once matched with a
guy who’s bio said something along the lines of “American (with the American flag emoji), hard
worker, and The Office lover”. I absolutely love The Office and I appreciate someone who
works hard for what they have and I think it is a good quality in a possible “lover”. Once I had
met up with this guy, I had wished he had put more about him in his bio. He was a construction
worker, nothing wrong with that, who led to believe we would be going to his apartment, but it
was actually a hotel room he was in for work during their present project. Red Flag number one.
For some reason during the night he decided to bring up the election that had not been
announced yet, and told me that, and this is an exact quote, “if you didn’t vote for Trump, you
wasted your vote”. Red Flag number two. He later then decided that it would be a good idea to
show me his guns, which I have extreme problems with loud noises and I often get anxiety
attacks around guns. Even after telling him this he tried to have me hold them and kept them out
to talk and talk about them. Red Flag number three. During this “date” I had realized we had
little similarities other than liking The Office, and I knew it would not work. Soon after this
“date” I texted him and told him I did not think it was going to work and thanked him for his
time and hospitality, to which he graciously replied “You’re a sl*t.” That reply completely
solidified that I extremely disliked this guy because of his attitudes with politics, his
abrasiveness, and his demeanor.
Stereotypes are defined as “specifically, beliefs about what a particular group is like”
(Branscombe & Baron, 191). I think stereotyping happens in online dating through pictures and
the bio. I think people often stereotype people based on what they are wearing, and I am guilty of
this sometimes. After the interaction in the previous paragraph, I began stereotyping all men in
cowboy hats with something along the lines of “Proud American” in their bio as someone
exactly like that guy. I tended to stay away from guys I put into that group because I had a belief
that they would all be abrasive, Trump-loving, gun toting, *ssholes. I also had an experience
with a different guy from Tinder where we grabbed beers and went to a park by the river to drink
and talk. I had a really good time and had intelligent conversations about my interests and his.
While we had a few different interests, he was engaged with what I was saying and visa versa.
After our date he texted me and said that he had to stop “whatever we had before it started”
because I had mentioned wanting to intern at the FBI or CIA and he went into extreme
conspiracy theories about the FBI and CIA. I immediately was turned off from this guy because I
stereotype conspiracy theorists into a category I call “either too smart for their own good or
absolutely crazy”. I actually had asked the next few people I matched with on Tinder if they had
any conspiracy theories they believed to gage whether there could be another person in that
category before I became invested in the possibility of a relationship.
Social cognition is concerns how we think about the social world, our attempts to
understand complex issues, and why we sometimes are less than ‘optimally rational,’”
(Brancombe & Baron, 39-40). Representative heuristics are an important part of social cognition,
they are characteristics that represent someone’s membership to a certain group. I think a
person’s bio on an online dating app is important because usually it shows that person’s major
characteristics that can make someone’s representative heuristics come through. I did this with
people with some type of “America” thing in their bio, and I also did it with people who were
couples looking for a third. I was never actually interested in being in a “throuple”, however I
thought it was very interesting how they presented themselves in their bio. My representative
heuristics of a throuple is usually that it is what the man wants and it is like a “lesbian fantasy”
type thing. I think their bios reinforced my heuristic, because usually the photos were of the
woman and barely viewable photos of the man, and their bios also usually said that the man
wanted a new woman to see their girlfriend with.
Self-presentation is “efforts by individuals to produce favorable first impressions on
others” (Brancombe & Baron, 439). Self-presentation tactics used in online dating especially are
self-promotion and self-deprecating. Self-promotion is trying to ensure form impressions based
off of one’s most favorable self-aspects. Self-promotion is used in online dating through picking
out the perfect pictures that make you look really good and intentionally leaving out the bad
pictures. It is also used in bios by putting characteristics about yourself that put you in what you
see as a good light, you won’t see someone put “narcissist” in their bio. Self-deprecating is imply
that we are not as good as another person. This is often used during the communication part of
online dating where a girl could say “I’m not that cute” or “There are way prettier girls” and a
guy could say “There are guys with bigger muscles” or “I am a little chubbier than most guys”.
Often this tactic is used in a way to “fish” for compliments from the other person, and from what
I have seen it often works. I think it makes you feel empathetic for the other person, so you want
to uplift them by saying something good about them in reply to a self-deprecating message. I
have also seen it work because the guy will simply want to make you feel better to get a chance
in bed with a girl. I have seen some of my friends use this tactic when messaging guys on Tinder,
and it always seems it is one or the other. It is either genuine compliments or an attempt to get in
my friend’s pants.
Overall, I think my experience on Tinder was based a lot on my stereotypes, social
cognition, self-presentation, and interpersonal attraction. I used a lot of previously held views in
order to sort through the vast expanse of people on Tinder, and I wasn’t always right on a match.
Whenever a match went wrong I changed some of my attitudes and stereotypes in order to
attempt to stay away from more bad experiences.