I am interested in the misrepresentation phenomenon that appears in online dating and to a lesser degree in offline dating. So I decided to read a couple of scientific papers, to “digest” them one by one, and to attempt a general understanding of this phenomenon. Misrepresentation can be approached through psychology and sociology, but also through theories on communication. This post will grow little by little as I gather more information. It will end with a general account, and with some practical recommendations.
Is the problem of misrepresentation important?
Reality check
(from Ref. 1):
Internet users and online daters both suspect that many people are dishonest about their marital status on dating websites.
A sizable majority of internet users agree that a lot of people who use online dating lie about their marital status; 57% agree that many people lie, while 18% disagree, and 25% say they do not know. Those with lower levels of income or education are more likely than the average internet user to suspect that people lie.
Just over half (52%) of online daters agree that a lot people are dishonest about being married, while 32% disagree, and 15% say they do not know. Single and looking internet users report similar views.
Those who do not have personal experience using the sites are no more suspect of people’s dishonesty than the average internet user.
(from Ref. 2)
Although unlikely to admit they themselves had lied, a high proportion of respondents did feel that certain characteristics were frequently misrepresented online by others. The most common were physical appearance (86%), relationship goals (49%), age (46%), income (45%), and marital status (40%).
(from Ref. 7)
Survey research conducted by media researcher Jeana Frost of Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that about 20 percent of online daters admit to deception. If you ask them how many other people are lying, however--an interviewing tactic that probably gets closer to the truth--that number jumps to 90 percent.
As we shall see, misrepresentation comes in many forms, and for different reasons. Some forms and levels of misrepresentation are acceptable by daters, while others are perceived as a nuisance. It is important to understand how this phenomena is coupled to the relational goals and expectations of daters (just flirting, friendship, romance, long-term relationship), the nature of the means of communication (text, voice, images, videos, combination of all), the environment where the exchange takes place (the website and it’s features), and the perceived relational success (how daters define success in their dating-related actions). This understanding will eventually lead to a greater control of the phenomena. It will help us better serve different segments of the market.
Definition
In the context of dating, misrepresentation is an untrue representation.
As Dennis D. Waskul (Ref. 3) puts it, people we meet on the Internet are not in it. In the case of dating, individuals have to construct representations of them, or profiles. This is what we are in contact with, a representation of someone else. A representation is what it is, and it is not the real thing. So talking about misrepresentation on the Internet seems a bit awkward. What dose it mean when we detect a misrepresentation by comparing a person with his/her Internet profile? We have in mind a certain discrepancy between the person and the profile, which surpasses some level of acceptance. In constructing a profile, an unaccepted discrepancy can be induced intentional or unintentional.
So what do people lie about on dating sites?
Most common and easily measurable lies are about age, marital or parental status, appearance, income, or profession.
Real life, computer-mediated communication, and dating
Misrepresentation is common practice in face-to-face communication. During a job interview, or a date, we all seek acceptance and try to portray a persona that corresponds with socially accepted models, and with what the interlocutor is looking for, based on the feedback that we get from the interaction. Face-to-face interaction involves different modes of communication, verbal as well as non-verbal. We know that we can’t control all our expressions, and that our lies can be detected by others. Con artists master the art of deception and they engage in it with confidence, but the majority of us usually practice honesty, partially because we are not successful liars. The fact that we are naturally good at detecting lies, kips misrepresentation low in face-to-face interactions. Education, culture, and moral factors also play a role, but with all this things kept unchanged, studies demonstrate a higher level of misrepresentation in computer-mediated communication (chat, forums, e-mails, etc.). It becomes much more difficult to catch a lie if the only medium of communication is text for example. And yet scientists have discovered that online dating is somewhere in between in terms of levels of misrepresentation. The anticipation of face-to-face future interaction, and the goal of building an intimate relationship, act as moderators.
Inherent problems with computer-mediated communication
Online dating is about initiating a relationship through computer-mediated communication. That process involves knowing whom the other person is. All dating sites offer members the possibility to build a profile, which is a representation of self. Here we have to distinguish between content and medium. Regardless of the intention of the user concerning the truthfulness of its self-presentation, the medium, which is structured, always puts constraints on the content. There are things that you cannot say in words, things that you don’t see in a picture. Moreover, the content can also suffer in accuracy due to the limited experience of the user in using the medium to convey meaning. Those that are good with words can “paint” in writing a very rich description of themselves. Perhaps others can achieve better results using a video presentation.
Another inherent characteristic of computer-mediated communication is the fact that the representation is disembodied. This fact alone increases the opportunity for consciously manipulating the self-presentation. The first important consequence is that it enables asynchronous communication. The second is that it makes possible an anonymous interaction. The third is that it imposes a limitation on the type and the amount if information conveyed. The interlocutors have more time to reflect on a reply, can feel more relaxed (being less exposed), less threatened, and even less involved (as their acts bear only small consequences).
Dennis D. Waskul (Ref. 3) takes this to another level. He treats the Internet as a liminality par excellence. The individual that is involved in computer-mediated communication find him/herself in an unusual state, where the difference between I (or self) and me (as I am within the social structure) is blurred. The experience itself imposes a different behavior, and misrepresentation becomes not only possible, but also the norm.
Environment “where” the communication takes place
If we concentrate on online dating, the interaction between two individuals takes place in a specific environment, which is entirely designed by the dating organization. This represents an extra layer of constraining structure, which can affect communication through an already limited and constringent medium. This is about how the website looks, if the text exchanged by members can be formatted or not, if the members can also include in their message icons representing emotions; this is also about the number of photos that a member can include with his/her profile, how large can these photos can be, etc. It has been clearly demonstrated that the environment has a profound effect on misrepresentation. For example, Robert Epstein (Ref. 7) has detected unrealistic patterns in the age distribution in a study made on members from Mutch.com.
For men, a small spike appeared in the distribution at 32 and a large one at 36. The number of men calling themselves 36 was dramatically higher than the average frequency of men between the ages of 37 and 41. For women, we found three clear age spikes at 29, 35 and 44. The difference between the number of women claming to be 29 and the average frequency of women claiming to be between ages 30 and 34 was nearly eight times larger than we would expect by chance.
There are two coupled reasons for this behaviour. The first one is related to the meaning that our culture imparts to certain ages. The second is related to the environment: there is a checkbox in the profile where the member must enter his/her age, and there could be a search engine where members can select profiles according to well-defined age limits. A person that truly looks younger then his/her age can be inclined to lie, if he/she is forced to enter the age in the age-box, knowing that the profile might not appear to a potential much that uses age cut-off in the search engine. In real-life things are different. The impression that we have about someone else is a whole mix of characteristics, weighted against our priorities and values. A short person may not attract us, but a combination of other positive aspects of that person can completely overshadow this inconvenient. A simplistic search engine based on categories like age, sex, height, weight, and a couple of keywords, is not the ideal situation. See the section Recommendations for a proposed solution to this problem.
Another problem related to the environment is the fact that communication is only one-on-one. This fact alone can affect in an important manner the inclinations of a person towards misrepresentation. Chat rooms and forums for example give the possibility to observe the behaviour of a person in interaction with others. The person here must construct a public image, and has to be careful not to introduce inconsistencies. One-on-one communication offers the possibility to consciously customize the self-presentation according to each interlocutor, and to increase the degree of misrepresentation. One-to-many exposure can have an opposite effect.
Misrepresentation from the dating organization
Some daters have raised another serious question. It appears that some profiles on dating sites are completely fabricated by the dating organization. Sometimes employees of the dating organization even interact with daters playing the role of someone that is interested. These practices are meant to increase members’ conversion, and members’ activity. Here we face a different phenomenon, and we must distinguish it from the misrepresentation of members themselves. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to mention it, as an online dater can fail to distinguish these two types of misrepresentation. Moreover, both phenomena contribute to undermine the reputation of the dating industry. This practice is definitely immoral, and from a business point of view it doesn’t make sense, because it is not sustainable.
A scientific look at Self-discloser
Jennifer L. Gibbs (Ref. 2) studied self-disclosure. She sees it as a multidimensional construct that varies along 4 dimensions:
- Honesty: degree of intentional misrepresentation.
- Amount: quantity of information disclosed in a profile
- Conscious intent: amount of conscious effort invested by the person in the construction of a profile.
- Valence (positive or negative): the profile can present the person in a positive or a negative light. Intentional misrepresentation can go either way.
She has proposed a model based on three important elements:
- Relational Goals: what individuals expect to achieve through their dating experience (long-term relationship, romance, friendship, etc.)
- Self-discloser: understood along the 4 dimensions mentioned above.
- Perceived Success: how individuals rate the success of their dating actions according to their relational goals.
Conclusions of the study:
First, we find that individuals with long-term goals of establishing FtF [face-to-face] relationships engage in higher levels of self-disclosure in that they are more honest, disclose more personal information, and make more conscious and intentional disclosures to others online. Their disclosures are not necessarily more positive than disclosures of those placing less importance on FtF goals, however. This unexpected finding may be explained by the fact that they are trying to present themselves in a realistic manner (i.e., one that includes negative as well as positive attributes) because they know such attributes will eventually be revealed in time if they develop ongoing FtF relationships. (...) Increased, more honest, and more intentional (though not more positive) self-disclosure in the context of online dating. Evidence that online self-disclosure (...) differs among users of CMC [computer-mediated communication] depending on their relational goals.
Perhaps our most surprising finding is the negative effect of honesty on success [success of dating actions perceived by online daters] particularly in self-presentation (...) One explanation is that those who are less honest may feel they have made a more favorable impression on others through online dating because they are probably not revealing flaws or negative characteristics that could turn off potential dating partners and may be outright lying about characteristics such as age, weight and physical appearance, or income. This explanation fits with the view of the Internet as a medium for identity manipulation or at least selective self-presentation (...) individuals often withhold negative information early on in relationship development.
More in-depth exploration of this issue through our qualitative analysis revealed that misrepresentation was not always intentional and occurred in three ways: through representation of an inaccurate self-concept, fudging demographic information such as age to avoid being “filtered out” in searches, and portrayal of an idealized or potential future version of the self.
The most important predictors of strategic success [regardless of what the relation goals are, whether the individual feels he/she understands how to be successful, and whether he/she has developed strategies for online dating] are related to [dating] experience, both cognitive and behavioral. In addition to experience, two aspects of self-disclosure contribute to strategic success: amount and intent. That is, those who disclose more about themselves and engage in more intentional self-disclosure are more likely to have strategic success [to have the feeling that they are close to their relational goals, and that they are in control of the process]. These findings imply that those who disclose more about themselves, and with more conscious intent, may benefit in two ways: First, they offer others more information about themselves, which may enable “deal breakers” to surface before the first FtF meeting, and second, they are likely to receive more information about potential dating partners because of the reciprocity norm surrounding self-disclosure and thus make better decisions about them.
For self-presentation success [refers to the degree to which users feel they are able to make a good impression on others and achieve favorable self-presentation through online dating], on the other hand, the strongest predictors are intentional and positive self-disclosure, two variables that are closely related to impression management. It makes sense that individuals who are more concerned with presenting themselves favorably and making a good impression on others through online dating would engage in more positive self-disclosure and be less inclined to reveal negative aspects of themselves as well as be less honest and control their self-disclosure more in an attempt to carefully craft online personae that are attractive, desirable, and perhaps idealized. These pressures are likely to be particularly important in early stages of relationship formation.
More positive and intentional self-presentation in online dating leads to greater perceptions of self-presentation success (though not necessarily to relational intimacy).
to be continued...
Recommendations
Manipulating the environment to reduce misrepresentation
1. In the section Environment “where” the communication takes place we talked about how the environment can modifier member’s behavior and affect misrepresentation. Dating sites use a limited number of characteristics to categorize members: sex, age, race, religion, height, weight, etc. Members are also given space to go beyond this simplistic categorization, and to construct a more complex self-presentation (a profile). Usually there are two possibilities to access other members’ profiles: browse or search. The search engine usually includes these same characteristics: sex, age, race, religion, height, weight, etc. Now, nobody denies that these labels are important. But in the same time we know that the importance of every one of them varies with the values of all others combined. In order to make it less constringent, search engines should also include for each one of these categories a weight. Every time the user enters a value for one of these categories, he/she also chooses its importance. The search engine then takes into account the values of all other labels, to decide how far it should go past the predefined limits. The search becomes more inclusive, but the extras are relevant to what the user is looking for.
2. Means of communication: offer various means of communication, and let members chose the write one according to the stage of their relation; enable one-to-many interaction. See next section.
Offering rich means of communication
It seams that when more information is revealed about a person at once, the level of misrepresentation becomes lower. Live webcam communication is the closest to face-to-face communication. Dating websites should offer this possibility to their members, alongside with other means of communication. Members can pass from text messaging, to telephone, and finally to webcam, as they grow more comfortable with each other, and get closer to a face-to-face meeting.
I believe that one-to-many interaction possibilities are also helpful to reduce misrepresentation, and to enable members to evaluate more accurately other members, and thus to reduce unpleasant surprises.
Free dating sites don’t work
Studies show that relational goals are strongly linked to misrepresentation. Those who are looking for a serious long-term relationship are less inclined to lie in their profiles. A dating website that charges a certain amount for its services is more likely to gather members with relational goals that match with the vocation of that specific online community, and to eliminate those who just want to flirt, or to explore new identities. Niche dating sites have an advantage as they operate a member selection from the start. Free generic dating sites usually have a wide member-type base. If a great percentage of members are not looking to establish serious (humane) relationships, the environment becomes unconformable for serious daters. Thus that site looses its vocations of being a dating site.
References
Ref .1 Mary Madden, Amanda Lenhart, Online Dating: Americans who are seeking romance use the internet to help them in their search, but there is still widespread public concern about the safety of online dating; PEW INTERNET & AMERICAN LIFE PROJECT 1615 L ST., NW – SUITE 700 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Online_Dating.pdf
Ref. 2 Jennifer L. Gibbs, Nicole B. Ellison and Rebecca D. Heino; Self-Presentation in Online Personals: The Role of Anticipated Future Interaction, Self-Disclosure, and Perceived Success in Internet Dating; Communication Research 2006; 33; 152; The online version of this article can be found at:
http://crx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/2/152
Ref. 3 Dennis D. Waskul; Ekstasis and the internet: liminality and computer-mediated communication; New Media Society 2005; 7; 47; The online version of this article can be found at: http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/1/47
Ref. 4 Nicole Ellison, Rebecca Heino, Jennifer Gibbs; Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment; Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11 (2006) 415–441
Ref. 5 Brian H. Spitzberg; Preliminary Development of a Model and Measure of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Competence; Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11 (2006) 629–666
Ref. 6 Scott E. Caplan; Preference for Online Social Interaction: A Theory of Problematic Internet Use and Psychosocial Well-Being; 2003; 30; 625 Communication Research
Ref. 7 By Robert Epstein; The Truth about Online Dating. The hype is huge, and the findings are somewhat disturbing--but the future of online dating looks good; Scientific American January 30, 2007
