I was talking to my friend Sophie recently, and she was matched on OKC and was feeling a bit torn on whether to meet her match. She mentioned that she didn't know if this guy would be her type since he posted a lot of "sunglasses" and "motorcycle" type photos - or what I would call "bro' photos." And Sophie certainly, or so she says, wasn't interested in that type. The point is that people don't necessarily pick the right photos to represent themselves. People generally just post photos where they look most attractive but they could be at a party which gives people the impression they party a lot. Or in this case, just not representative.
In real life, this "bro'" guy turned out to be "a big teddy bear." She would never have known if she didn't take the random leap of faith to get coffee with him. Photos not only distract us from what builds a long-term attraction, it is also misleading to the end user.
As I dug further into this topic with my friend Randy, whom you all know by now, there were more studies that show why pictures just aren't reliable.
1. When we're talking about a picture we're really talking about attractiveness, which is very much affected by a person's personality; especially for those who aren't among the hottest people on the market, if someone likes their personality, they will later be perceived as more attractive than they would in a traditional image-driven app. Src: Lewandowski, Aron, and Gee (2007)
2. Now let's say attractiveness was accurately confirmed via a picture, there is another issue that people form opinions very quickly about that person's personality as well. We humans just can't help it, it's automatic. Furthermore, those judgments aren't necessarily very accurate and are often dependent on the idiosyncrasies of the picture. In turn, people become terribly confident in their ability to "read other people" which leads to incompatible matches. Src: Couch and Liamputtong (2008) & Todorov and Porter (2014)
3. On the flip side, a study shows that people are MORE accurate in making judgement about personal characteristics when they do not have a picture than when they do. Which says cover your eyes and trust your gut :) Src: Todorov and Olivola (2010)
String resolves these issues by changing the sequence of information presented to the user. We are not denying the importance of physical attraction, but it is however temporary and often distracting if not misleading in the course of getting to know a person in the beginning.
An OKC study revealed that "people are exactly as shallow as their technology allows them to be." On String, users will get to know the person first so when you really pick your match and decide if you want to meet this person, you'll have the ideal sense and instinct to make that decision. Go you!
ABOUT STRING
String is a dating app for people who are searching for deep and potentially long-lasting connections -- because, who really wants a "no strings attached" relationship? You won't have to answer a long list of silly questions but rather a scientifically chosen set of questions that result in a meaningful connection based on criteria that really matter.
Helen Huang is the founder of String, a dating app that matches users based on their responses to meaningful questions, creating long-lasting and deep relationships. For the past five years Helen has overseen product development at TRUSTe and recently completed the highly-selective Startup Leadership Program in San Francisco. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
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