Online Dating
Author: Abhishek Kadam
MMS – Roll No.20
Kohinoor Business School
Literature Review
Commodifying love: value conflict in online dating:
MININA, A. et al. (2023) say that the relationships have been infiltrated by market ideology. Emotional capitalism, as defined by Illouz (1997, 2007), expresses this interdependence between emotion and economic relationships in that they do not stand alone but rather shape and influence each other. Value conflict contributes to the misalignment of procedures, understandings and engagements that constitute practices in interactive value formation, resulting in value co-destruction.
The inherent conflict between hedonistic consumption as a symbolic ritual of ‘love’ and the sphere of production is a central theme in discussing emotional capitalism. We argue that conflicting values destabilize interactions between market actors through the breakdown of certainty mechanisms, while the neoliberal market ideology of online dating transforms individual selves into commodities, fostering the devaluation and objectification of human subjects in a consumption community. it is important for us as marketing researchers to transcend the considerations of managerial efficiency and to adopt a critical perspective.
The economics of online dating: A course in economic modelling:
MONACO, A. J. (2018) says that the course is The Economics of Online Dating, an upper-level undergraduate course with introductory economics as its only prerequisite. As the course progresses, the theory grows more complex, and provides students with an increasingly flexible set of tools with which to build models. It is possible that, despite our best efforts as undergraduate educators, the methodological intentions of the economic models we teach get lost. There is a danger that students fail to appreciate the depth of the conditional or case-based approach used in a given model.
Modelling an originally observed phenomenon requires a different approach than solving a predetermined model assigned by the professor. The Economics of Online Dating provides a uniquely focused opportunity to teach both the science of economic modelling and the art of (theoretical) model selection and specification. The module on search theory will be used to motivate each stage of the approach and the pedagogical connections between stages. The course strikes a balance between presenting new concepts and drawing connection to those in prior courses.
Navigating the Marketplace of Love: Value Conflict in Online Dating Community:
MININA, A. et al. (2020) state that markets are presented as social/cultural constructions, a bundle of resources consumers can use to give meanings and values to their lives. In parallel with the suggestions from the field of sociocultural consumer research, the notion of value creation in S-D logic research has moved from a linear perspective, to a network perspective, involving a variety of actors. The service ecosystems perspective further highlighted the contextual nature of value creation, where value makes sense only within the social system in which it is created.
The meeting between consumers and service providers happens in a sociocultural environment; the fruit of this meeting can potentially create or destroy value for one singular actor, or for all of the actors participating in the relationship. In our analysis of consumer online dating experiences, we focus on consumer subjectivity, analyzing the misbehavior of consumers against other consumers, in an interactive co-destruction of value that affects consumer well-being as well as that of a larger society. We focus on the online dating services environment, where a possible negative value of the exchange can be found at the core of the transaction, with the risk of treating people as products.
Matching and Sorting in Online Dating:
HITSCH, G. J. et al. (2010) state that, Online dating takes place in a new market environment that has become a common means to find a date or a marriage partner. Based on the preference estimates, we then examine whether an economic matching model can explain the observed online matching patterns, and we evaluate the efficiency of the matches obtained on the Web site. Online dating provides us with a unique environment to study the causes of sorting. Hence, online dating markets allow us to study to what extent sorting is due to mate preferences and the market mechanism.
The strong agreement between the observed and predicted matches suggests that the online dating market achieves an approximately efficient outcome within the set of stable matches. We cannot directly compare the attribute correlations observed online to correlations in marriages due to differences between the online and offline populations along demographic characteristics. The main goal of our paper, however, is to characterize the equilibrium market outcomes in online dating and marriage markets, which is not attempted by the aforementioned papers.
One-Way Mirrors in Online Dating: A Randomized Field Experiment:
BAPNA, R. et al. (2016) says that online dating websites is altering one of the most fundamental human activities: finding a date or a marriage partner. Online dating platforms offer new capabilities, such as extensive search, big data–based mate recommendations, and varying levels of anonymity, whose parallels do not exist in the physical world. The continued growth of online dating despite the presence of a close substitute, the physical world, reflects the presence of significant frictions in the offline dating and marriage markets. Yet the underlying processes, dynamics, and implications of mate seeking in the online world are largely unstudied.
The anonymity feature of online dating enables us to examine an interesting horse race between social frictions and search costs in online dating markets. Social frictions in such contexts arise from existing social norms that govern the contact initiation process in romantic situations. Our point of departure from what is already known regarding preferences in heterosexual matching rests on the idea that observed preferences are conditional on two initial stages in the mate selection process. Our research is motivated by taking into account these well-documented frictions and examining whether the newer capabilities afforded by the online environment can mitigate them.
Education and income attraction: an online dating field experiment:
ONG, D. (2016) says that Education has generally been viewed as such a trait. A robust correlation between couple educational attainment has been found in a number of studies in many countries. The main problem is that stable couples are the result of a long period of learning. Preferences can be derived from their final choice to exchange contact information with those with whom they were matched, and often from their explicit ratings of their partners. A common level of education would then decrease their ability to specialize in home production, for example, childcare. Such dis-complementarities could be the reason educational homogamy has been decreasing in developing Asian economies, where the educational attainment of women has been rising steadily.
The major problem with the identification of such a preference is that education is correlated with many other desirable qualities in a mate, in particular income, which is very difficult to disentangle in marriage or even speed dating data. Whatever the case may be, our evidence from randomly assigned levels of education and income, suggests that relationship public goods that stem from a common level of education are not at the forefront of either men’s or women’s minds in China. Furthermore, women’s preferences for higher mate income may be an unacknowledged contributing factor in the educational homogamy found in prior studies.
LOVE UNSHACKLED: IDENTIFYING THE EFFECT OF MOBILE APP ADOPTION IN ONLINE DATING:
JAEHWUEN JUNG. et al. (2019) says that, Companies are investing substantial amounts of money in creating mobile applications and experiences, and they need theoretical and practical guidance on the business value of such investments. Our paper addresses this need and gap in the literature. A key evolving thesis that underlies this projected growth is the belief that the next generation of context-aware apps engage their users in a way that traditional enterprise systems and web-based applications cannot. The interesting aspect of social engagement in the online dating context is that while each particular user may exit a dating site after achieving a successful match, this successful user’s departure is a highly desirable outcome for the website.
Our results demonstrate that when users adopt the mobile app, they become more socially engaged in that they visit significantly more profiles, send significantly more messages, and, importantly, achieve more matches. Our work focuses on the impact of a channel shift, which goes beyond the impact of individual features, on impulsivity in engagement. Thus, understanding the impact and direction of the causal link between mobile app adoption and social engagement is an empirical question, which we address in this paper. We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between the mobile app adoption and change in the corresponding user behavior.
Romantic Rebuttals: Moralistic Tensions in Positive Marketing within the Online Dating Industry:
ANLAMLIER, E. et al. (2022) states that Positive marketing, defined as any marketing activity that creates value for the firm, its customers, and society, engages in cultural, political, or legal debates and inevitably has fans and foes. Successful campaigns can build strong connections with targeted consumers and raise consumer skepticism towards marketers’ intentions and authenticity due to moral judgments of stigmatized businesses. Online dating enables consumers to build profiles in which they present and market themselves to potential dating partners and view profiles of others allowing them to “shop” for potential partners.
Political dynamics, such as racial discussions, me-too movement and women’s marches, impacted how people dated. Although some articles highlighted dating’s growing diversity with discussions of multi-racial couples, dating for non-heterosexual people, and women’s empowerment in dating via technology via the help of better data analyzing and matching capabilities, other articles discussed how political divides influence dating culture.
Free to be me: The relationship between the true self, rejection sensitivity, and use of online dating sites:
HANCE, M. A. et al. (2018) state that within romantic relationships, rejection sensitive individuals often engage in behaviors that elicit rejection from their romantic partners. For instance, rejection sensitive individuals who expect rejection from their romantic partners are more likely to attribute hurtful intent when a new romantic partner engages in insensitive behaviors. For instance, people higher in rejection sensitivity may be more likely to engage in online dating because it may be easier to avoid rejection and/or because rejection cues may be less salient in online environments than in face-to-face dating environments.
The relation between rejection sensitivity and online dating may therefore be explained by the extent to which individuals feel comfortable revealing their true selves online versus in face-to-face social interactions. As online dating sites and apps continue to increase in popularity as a way to meet potential romantic partners, it is important to understand the factors that contribute to this phenomenon. Perhaps engaging in online dating may increase dating success for individuals high in rejection sensitivity in that they may be more likely to meet potential dating partners and to initiate and/or enter into dating relationships.
Effect of Internet addiction on marital life:
CHATTOPADHYAY, S. et al. (2020) says that Internet connects people to the World Wide Web and provides an easy escape for people from their immediate environment and people tend to move away from their intimate relations. The marriage quality scale by Shah was used as an instrument for marital satisfaction. Youngs Internet addiction test was used for checking for the presence of Internet addiction. Internet addiction could result in mental illness, again internet addiction could be secondary to mental illness. People tend to seek an easy escape in the World Wide Web to escape from the distress of mental illness.
As people spend more time online, the time invested in intimate relation decreases. This is bound to produce anguish. Partner may be left off, perceiving a threat to their cherished relation and this experience often makes them anticipate online affairs and online dating. Needless to mention when partners trust each other, anxiety about the relationship reduces. This leaves us with the question that, is trust the strongest pillar in the relationship that remains unaffected by odds?
Conclusion:
These articles are trying to show how online dating affects individuals mentally, physically and in a relationship. Value conflict contributes to the misalignment of procedures, understandings and engagements that constitute practices in interactive value formation, resulting in value co-destruction. The Economics of Online Dating provides a uniquely focused opportunity to teach both the science of economic modelling and the art of (theoretical) model selection and specification.
The service ecosystems perspective further highlighted the contextual nature of value creation, where value makes sense only within the social system in which it is created. Social frictions in such contexts arise from existing social norms that govern the contact initiation process in romantic situations. As online dating sites and apps continue to increase in popularity as a way to meet potential romantic partners, it is important to understand the factors that contribute to this phenomenon. Internet addiction could result in mental illness, again internet addiction could be secondary to mental illness. People tend to seek an easy escape in the World Wide Web to escape from the distress of mental illness.
References:
ANLAMLIER, E. et al. (2022) – Romantic Rebuttals: Moralistic Tensions in Positive Marketing within the Online Dating Industry. Advances in Consumer Research, [s. l.], v. 50, p. 501–502, 2022. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=a6f4ab8a-a78a-34c1-84fd-2effa2453f84. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.
BAPNA, R. et al. (2016) – One-Way Mirrors in Online Dating: A Randomized Field Experiment. Management Science, [s. l.], v. 62, n. 11, p. 3100–3122, 2016. DOI 10.1287/mnsc.2015.2301. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=fbbdb8b5-dc64-3810-aac7-fd639451450d. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.
CHATTOPADHYAY, S. et al. (2020) – Effect of Internet addiction on marital life. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, [s. l.], v. 29, n. 2, p. 268–271, 2020. DOI 10.4103/ipj.ipj_76_19. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=a6a4ff3d-f163-3fd3-b72f-36c8c0b7d229. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.
HANCE, M. A.; BLACKHART, G.; DEW, M. (2018) – Free to be me: The relationship between the true self, rejection sensitivity, and use of online dating sites. Journal of Social Psychology, [s. l.], v. 158, n. 4, p. 421–429, 2018. DOI 10.1080/00224545.2017.1389684. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=84aa4a2b-3fcb-3b59-a7b1-c95ba0fd96b4. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.
HITSCH, G. J.; HORTAÇSU, A.; ARIELY, D. (2010) – Matching and Sorting in Online Dating. American Economic Review, [s. l.], v. 100, n. 1, p. 130–163, 2010. DOI 10.1257/aer.100.1.130. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=945d527a-3072-351e-95b1-37eb033f8941. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.
JAEHWUEN JUNG et al. (2019) – Love Unshackled: Identifying the Effect of Mobile App Adoption in Online Dating. MIS Quarterly, [s. l.], v. 43, n. 1, p. 47–72, 2019. DOI 10.25300/MISQ/2019/14289. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=54274da7-b55b-398f-b9fa-e78ca7c781da. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.
MININA, A.; MASÈ, S.; SMITH, J. (2020) – Navigating the Marketplace of Love: Value Conflict in Online Dating Community. Advances in Consumer Research, [s. l.], v. 48, p. 537–540, 2020. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=900df638-b70c-3427-aac3-f83991f5c6e0. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.
MININA, A.; MASÈ, S.; SMITH, J. (2022) – Commodifying love: value conflict in online dating. Journal of Marketing Management, [s. l.], v. 38, n. 1/2, p. 98–126, 2022. DOI 10.1080/0267257X.2022.2033815. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=7d5e2109-3261-3685-b89a-747c44570046. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.
MONACO, A. J. (2018) – The economics of online dating: A course in economic modelling. Journal of Economic Education, [s. l.], v. 49, n. 1, p. 46–58, 2018. DOI 10.1080/00220485.2017.1397572. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=3f932843-7c3c-35dd-83be-ad2b4216066c. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.
ONG, D. (2016) – Education and income attraction: an online dating field experiment. Applied Economics, [s. l.], v. 48, n. 19, p. 1816–1830, 2016. DOI 10.1080/00036846.2015.1109039. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=05cadf34-3ab8-3b00-94c4-fbb2da9fbd21. Acesso em: 12 maio. 2023.