Cyber dating unveiled

Researchers have uncovered the truth behind the white lies that permeate online dating profiles.

Jeffrey A. Hall, PhD, assistant professor at University of Kansas and lead researcher on this recent study, has explained how the team surveyed online daters to gain insight into gender differences, self-monitoring and misrepresentation.

The survey used detailed questions to highlight individual personality traits with respect to openness, extroversion, education and income.

"We also asked a series of questions on an important trait that we call self monitoring," explained Hall.

"Self monitoring is about how we try to present ourselves in a favourable light to others, to make people like us.

"Someone who scores as ‘low’ on self monitoring is extremely authentic when describing themselves in all circumstances, and those who score ‘high’ are more prone to so-called white lies."

The researchers also found a subtle gender gap, women tend to lie more about their weight and men were more apt to lie about their interest in a long-term relationship and misrepresent past relationships.

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However, Hall and his team concluded that men and women behave the same online as they would if introduced face-to-face; dispelling the myths that online dating is any more dishonest. In fact, if a person (irrespective of gender) is going to lie, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are online.

The study’s key findings for those who are active online daters is that extroversion will make a person more likely to lie and openness brings out the truth.

"What people lie about really depends on the type of people they are," said Hall. "Someone who is really open to new experiences, likes going hiking in the mountains, likes to go travel to foreign countries — they are very unlikely to misrepresent themselves based upon their interests because they are very interesting people. A more open person would be very unlikely to lie about what they are interested in because they are interested in many things."

However extroverts, people that are more outgoing, "are more likely to misrepresent themselves based upon their past relationships because they tend to have a lot of past relationships," Hall said. Extroverts have more relationships and "as a consequence have more opportunity to misrepresent themselves."

Research concluded that "for the most part men and women are quite similar" and "lying is not a prevalent behaviour" amongst a diverse 5000-subject pool that included a range of ethnicity, class, education, ages 18 to 96 that were single, divorced and separated.

Later this year, Hall along with some of his colleagues, will publish a new study "Individual differences in the communication of romantic interest: Development of the flirting styles inventory" in Communications Quarterly, an academic journal, about the five factors in the way people communicate their interest.

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AFP