DAILY RECORD — Mar 21 — Boffins 'prove' passion can be perfect .. but it takes a year to blossom. Forget love at first sight. Scientists have discovered true love only begins after 12 months. Research has revealed real love blossoms with time, especially for men. 147 couples took part in the study. According to the study, men are more likely to find true love than women. The research, by psychologists at Bath University, was commissioned by Match.com. To date, there has been no systematic study of love in the context of relationships formed via online dating sites.
The full article was originally published at Daily Record, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: I'm not seeing anything really earth shattering here. 147 couples seems like a small sample. But, it's a veritable start. With millions of daters online, major sites should be able to perform studies of hundreds of thousands. I'm looking forward to the day online dating sites truly open up to the fantastic and extensive university brainpower. Psychologists around the world must be itching to get their hands on the major online dating sites data and research resources. Your comments please…
Match.com has nearly 20,000,000 of profiles.
Did Dr. Gavin research for only “147 couples who took part in the study”?
I am anxiously waiting to see/read/analyze that study.
(“Findings will be presented at an International Association of Relationship Researchers conference in Crete in July.”)
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
A few issues can be raised here:-
Firstly Mark’s comment on the number of respondents. Yes it’s relatively low. Although we don’t know the universe of potential couples for the survey, normally a figure of 400-500 is generally regarded to be statistically robust.
Secondly, were incentives used to maximise the response rate ? If not, then maybe they should be considered next time around.
Also, the original email message (assuming they were contacted by email and not another method). Where did it come from: Bath University or Match.com ?
Only a small proportion of those invited to participate would have an existing or past relationship with Bath Uni, and therfore be less motivated to participate. In contrast, ALL of them have had a relationship with Match, and would probably show more interest if the invitation originated from them.
Thirdly, and lastly, at least the survey highlighted the number of respondents, rather than try and blow it up to be something it’s not.
Anyway, the research has served its main purpose – providing an opportunity to publicise online dating and Match in particular. And more ‘fun’ or ‘serious’ intenet dating features in the media can only be a good thing (provided the companies / industry behave themselves!).
Guess that shoots a hole in their “find the love of your life in 90 days promotions.” Well I guess you can find them, just don’t fall in love for a year.
The response rate is poor and does not seem representative — thus it is premature for the authors to make any generalizations.
More to the point, the measurement of constructs related to “compatibility” and love is extremely difficult, as I and Drs. Rense Lange and Glenn Wilson have shown in previous work. Almost all research to date is based on Classical Test Theory, which professionals in the tests and measurements field have known to be outdated since 1960! Instead the gold standard of measurement is Item Response Theory (IRT).
I and my colleagues never take any study like this seriously unless it uses IRT. If there is no IRT basis to the research, then there is no guarantee that fundamental issues related to reliability and validity of measurement have been satisfied.
However, it is nice to see that others in the academic field are trying to address these issues.
Thanks,
James Houran, Ph.D.
Online Dating Magazine