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Study: Men on Tinder do not appear to be intimidated by highly educated women

Kemono

Kemono

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Oct 27, 2017
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Men on Tinder do not appear to be intimidated by highly educated women, according to new research.

New research has found no evidence that men have an aversion to a highly educated romantic partner in general.
The study, published in the journal Economics of Education Review, indicated that both men and women on Tinder tended to prefer better educated partners — though women were far more selective.

https://www.psypost.org/2019/08/men...ducated-women-according-to-new-research-54187
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Journal Reference:
Brecht Neyt, Sarah Vandenbulcke, Stijn Baert,
Are men intimidated by highly educated women? Undercover on Tinder,
Economics of Education Review, Volume 73, 2019, 101914, ISSN 0272-7757,

Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775719301104
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.101914.
IF: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=19692&tip=sid

Highlights
• Women on Tinder are more selective than men on Tinder.
• Women on Tinder have a preference for highly educated men.
• Men on Tinder are not intimidated by highly educated women.
• On Tinder, preferences for educational assortative mating are absent.

Abstract:
In this study, we examine the impact of an individual's education level on her/his mating success on the mobile dating app Tinder.
To do so, we conducted a field experiment on Tinder in which we collected data on 3,600 profile evaluations. In line with previous research on mating preferences from multiple fields, our results indicate a heterogeneous effect of education level by gender: while women strongly prefer a highly educated potential partner, this hypothesis is rejected for men. In contrast with recent influential studies from the field of economics, we do not find any evidence that men would have an aversion to a highly educated potential partner. Additionally, in contrast with most previous research – again from multiple fields – we do not find any evidence for preferences for educational assortative mating, i.e. preferring a partner with a similar education level.
 
BDS

BDS

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Oct 25, 2017
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No shit, they're not intimidated by the college degree on your profile, they are potentially intimidated by the intelligence you display when interacting with them and the pushback/independence that comes with it. That has nothing to do with your college degree.
 
weemadarthur

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Oct 25, 2017
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How many of the 3600 profiles were male and how many female? If there is not gender parity overall on the site, then leaving out that vector [strong competition for limited resources] makes this bad science.
 
RDreamer

RDreamer

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Oct 25, 2017
14,106
Women are more selective with online dating because they can be.

Men swipe right on nearly anyone they find attractive because they basically have to.

Personally I was selective on OKCupid and almost always ended up with extremely intelligent women. My wife is much smarter and more educated than me. The previous woman I dated was too. But when I tried Tinder is turned me off because it really felt like it was funneling you into a sort of meat market mentality. There's no real info and the picture is like 99% of what you're shown.
 
Podge293

Podge293

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Oct 25, 2017
5,760
haha isnt it just a race to see how fast you hit the "upgrade for more likes"

that's how my mates all do it. dont pay attention to shit
 
ReplacementPelican

ReplacementPelican

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Oct 29, 2017
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RDreamer said:
Women are more selective with online dating because they can be.

Men swipe right on nearly anyone they find attractive because they basically have to.
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Well it's the power balance, largely, have a lot of female friends and male friends on Tinder and women definitely have the power of selection most times. I'd say the people are relative analogues to each other in terms of attractiveness but the women get massively, massively more likes, we're talking thousands.

Glad I'm not running these games to be honest, seems mad.

But I guess at least this study is positive.

BDS said:
No shit, they're not intimidated by the college degree on your profile, they are potentially intimidated by the intelligence you display when interacting with them and the pushback/independence that comes with it. That has nothing to do with your college degree.
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Is this limited to men, though? I've seen all sorts of people break up because of disagreements either socially or politically, if that's what you mean.
 
A More Normal Bird

A More Normal Bird

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Nov 14, 2017
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BDS said:
No shit, they're not intimidated by the college degree on your profile, they are potentially intimidated by the intelligence you display when interacting with them and the pushback/independence that comes with it. That has nothing to do with your college degree.
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This was my first thought. Liking a profile, or even sending a message, is in a similar tier as saying "I'd hit that" and doesn't really say much about deeper attitudes or behaviour.
 
Lulu

Lulu

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Oct 25, 2017
26,680
Only person I'm intimidated by is my momma, feel me?
 
Asbsand

Asbsand

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Oct 30, 2017
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Man, I never thought about this but it almost sickens me how stats are being gathered on the successrate and tendency of people dating.
 
Shiloh

Shiloh

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Oct 25, 2017
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I thought most of the studies were reflecting educated women not being with uneducated men.

But way to frame it from the man's perspective I guess
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

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Oct 27, 2017
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Asbsand said:
Man, I never thought about this but it almost sickens me how stats are being gathered on the successrate and tendency of people dating.
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It sickens you...? That's weird. Why? Stats are collected about everything. The foundation of understanding trends, habits, behaviors and psychology is collecting data. It's entirely normal

A More Normal Bird said:
This was my first thought. Liking a profile, or even sending a message, is in a similar tier as saying "I'd hit that" and doesn't really say much about deeper attitudes or behaviour.
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You say this, but some people do seem to treat online and in person the same. At least with the number of women I've seen "too shy to message first" which I'd get in person, but makes no sense online
 
Blue Sky Noise

Blue Sky Noise

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Oct 28, 2017
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And yes by the way, I DO have a Rick and Morty tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand.
 
Asbsand

Asbsand

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Oct 30, 2017
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808s & Villainy said:
It sickens you...? That's weird. Why? Stats are collected about everything. The foundation of understanding trends, habits, behaviors and psychology is collecting data. It's entirely normal
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I guess I simply have a flowery perception of using Tinder. I see it as a place to go where humans meet other humans, and everything is on a personal level. Obviously there's metricts determining how to match-make, so I should've realized it.

To me stats can be good but a lot of the time all I think they create is new biases and excuses like "But the statistics say...!" and in the end we form the statistics, and unless we're talking about economics I feel like stats are just there to needlessly make our world more complicated.
 
ckareset

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I don't think tinder is the best way to study that.
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

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Asbsand said:
I guess I simply have a flowery perception of using Tinder. I see it as a place to go where humans meet other humans, and everything is on a personal level. Obviously there's metricts determining how to match-make, so I should've realized it.

To me stats can be good but a lot of the time all I think they create is new biases and excuses like "But the statistics say...!" and in the end we form the statistics, and unless we're talking about economics I feel like stats are just there to needlessly make our world more complicated.
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Well there's the stats every company takes because products are built and tailored based on the habits of users. That's unavoidable and I'd say even nonsensical to not collect. Then there's stats on the habits, in the context of dating. You say they create biases and excuses, but I think if anything, they expose the existing biases already present and help combat them. OkCupid had an awesome blog where they presented analysis of the various data they'd collected

https://theblog.okcupid.com/tagged/data
 

Deleted member 4034

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Oct 25, 2017
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shnurgleton said:
I have a preference for highly educated and intelligent women, it's kind of like the minimum requirement
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What does highly educated even count as, graduate degree.

I always did scratch my head at the profiles that described themselves as educated, figured most people just listed the college they went to.

It's the "I prefer intellectual conversations" profiles that make me roll my eyes.

But yeah, it most comes down to, am I attracted to you, do you live somewhat close, do you do things besides marathon the office.
 
Terminus

Terminus

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Oct 30, 2017
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*takes enormous bong rip*

Asbsand said:
I guess I simply have a flowery perception of using Tinder. I see it as a place to go where humans meet other humans, and everything is on a personal level. Obviously there's metricts determining how to match-make, so I should've realized it.

To me stats can be good but a lot of the time all I think they create is new biases and excuses like "But the statistics say...!" and in the end we form the statistics, and unless we're talking about economics I feel like stats are just there to needlessly make our world more complicated.
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Dr. Monkey

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Oct 25, 2017
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Seems prudent to mention this:

For this study, we created 24 fictitious Tinder profiles in multiple cities in Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking region of Belgium.
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I would not consider this generalizable data, but it does create a study model that could be used in other regions to check for cross-cultural applications.
 

Fonst

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Nov 16, 2017
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Do men/people care how smart the other one is if they are just looking to hookup?
 
HStallion

HStallion

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Oct 25, 2017
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I'm only interested in ladies who put quotes from Its Always Sunny in their tinder profiles. You know a lady is a freak if they're quoting Dennis Reynolds.
 
Spinluck

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BDS said:
No shit, they're not intimidated by the college degree on your profile, they are potentially intimidated by the intelligence you display when interacting with them and the pushback/independence that comes with it. That has nothing to do with your college degree.
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I don't think it's so much intimidation but is them wanting to put in the bare minimum to get laid and smart women not falling for it unless they are a smoking hot dude.
 
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Kingpin Rogers

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Why would they be? If I was dating someone I'd want them to be as smart as possible, surely having somebody stupid around would be annoying?
 
hey it's that dog

hey it's that dog

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Oct 25, 2017
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BDS said:
No shit, they're not intimidated by the college degree on your profile, they are potentially intimidated by the intelligence you display when interacting with them and the pushback/independence that comes with it. That has nothing to do with your college degree.
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I think this surely has something to do with it.

I also wouldn't be surprised if men simply underestimate how much smarter than them an educated person might be.

Or they don't care either way because they aren't seeking a long term relationship.
 
Saganator

Saganator

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Oct 26, 2017
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A ton of dudes just swipe right after looking at a picture for .5 seconds. Also I don't remember seeing many people advertising their educational background on Tinder
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

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Saganator said:
A ton of dudes just swipe right after looking at a picture for .5 seconds. Also I don't remember seeing many people advertising their educational background on Tinder
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Tinder usually shows your school and job and, at least where I am, there are tons of students in their mid-upper 20s (grad students, law, med, nursing, etc)
 
Tlaloc

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Isn't tinder just a fuck site? In which case do you really care about said persons education when all you're trying to do is get your dick wet?
 
skipgo

skipgo

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Of course not, men can't wait to "well, actually" her on the very same subject she got a degree on that they have no real clue about.
 
weemadarthur

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Blue Sky Noise said:
And yes by the way, I DO have a Rick and Morty tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand.
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You can't start this without posting your numbers. Also label the scale used.
Dr. Monkey said:
I would not consider this generalizable data, but it does create a study model that could be used in other regions to check for cross-cultural applications.
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Didn't the "women prefer educated men" data come from the usa in the first place? Can this question even be extrapolated to Europe?
 
Doober

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Tlaloc said:
Isn't tinder just a fuck site? In which case do you really care about said persons education when all you're trying to do is get your dick wet?
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It probably skews more towards hookups but I was surprised by how many womens' profiles explicitly stated "not here for hookups."
 
hey it's that dog

hey it's that dog

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Now that I've read the full article linked in the OP, I'm not sure this study is very good. They acknowledge the limitation that it's just the very first step in the assortative mating process, but that fact alone kind of destroys any ability to draw the conclusions they want to draw.
 
Dr. Monkey

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weemadarthur said:
You can't start this without posting your numbers. Also label the scale used.

Didn't the "women prefer educated men" data come from the usa in the first place? Can this question even be extrapolated to Europe?
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I do think there are some inherent issues with studies like this for these reasons. I am always no-fun Monkey when discussing research methods that don't take larger demographics questions and cultural issues seriously into consideration.
 
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