What is beautiful is good, even online: Correlations between photo attractiveness and text attractiveness in men’s online dating profiles

Attractive people are considered by others to have many positive qualities and in the case of social skills and intelligence, these attributions are often true. In internet dating, individuals with attractive profile photos are viewed more favorably overall, but no research has yet established whether they indeed have more positive qualities. We addressed this issue by having 50 women independently rate 100 photos and free-written texts taken from males’ profiles on a popular dating website. Photos rated as physically attractive had profile texts that were rated as more attractive, even though photos and texts were rated by different judges. Perceived confidence seemed to play a mediating role, suggesting that attractive men write appealing texts because they are aware of their high mate value. Thus, contrary to popular belief, the internet does not seem to “level the playing field.”

► Women rated men’s internet dating photos independently from their profile texts.
► Men with attractive photos wrote texts that were rated as more attractive.
► Perceived confidence seemed to play a mediating role.
► This fits with self-fulfilling prophecy, but also with “good genes” theories.
► Thus, internet dating does not seem to “level the playing field.”