Assignment VI
Part I
a.What are the costs of writing a profile - terms of effort? money (here are some notes on how pay sites impose useful costs)?
After reading the papers and looking at information online, and having gone through some blurbs that online dating participants write, seems like one of the biggest costs is that of cognitive effort. People put a lot of thought into planning to go online and then creating a profile. Posting the right pictures and describing yourself as accurately to align with your purpose of being online is more effort than people take in regular dating. In addition, those who are sincere endure a relatively higher cost to stand apart from the deceptive profiles. A lot of thought goes into what kind of picture should I post and am sure there are people who take all too many pictures before they select one. As far as writing goes, the honest ones would have many of their friends and family read it before posting it. Going through reviews and edits of profile to make it sound honest and even include the receivers’ discount factor into it all requires a lot of thought and effort.
Regarding money, I think it’s a small cost in order to keep out the dishonest ones. It’s a good practice to channel all the honest people to one spot. It does have its disadvantages if your contract gets renewed or that by good luck a partner is found well before the contract end-date. However, this I feel is not as big a cost to the participants who have a serious intent to defraud or to find a partner.
b.What are the costs of including a photo? What is the function of the photo? Is physical appearance a signal or a quality - and is that different than its function in the face to face world?
As mentioned above, posting the right picture is a big component of the effort taken to participate in online dating. People want to see photographs of others to try and read many things about the person. For some it’s a purely skin-deep beauty and attraction and others try to judge character by looking at the person’s eyes or what they were wearing when the picture was taken. At the signaler’s end, a photo is a strong way to convey facts about one’s self again by choosing what to wear and where to take the picture.
The importance given to a photo here does not seem surprising or inapt at all. Cultures in which arranged marriages are still in practice lay a lot of importance on photos. The boy and girl get to see the other’s photo before deciding whether the family would pursue the alliance. In fact it is not only the person in question who decides by seeing the photo, the entire family puts a lot of importance on the photo. The photo is almost like the deciding straw if all else (like background, education, job etc) has already been verified. It serves the purpose of getting a general idea about the person’s physical features. It works as a signal if a lot of thought is gone into what you where and where you take the picture, this signaling your status or interests. It could also display quality if there are no noticeable efforts in making the picture look good with lighting and posture. Just as people know to discount description information of a profile, similarly they are aware that people would try some amount of manipulation to make the photo look good. However, there is only so much one can camouflage in a picture. There is a lot of importance given to people’s expressions and people derive meaning from the person in the photo’s eyes. It is said that the eyes cannot lie and I think that many look for that sincerity in the eyes of a person. The same is the case with photos in online dating.
c.What are the costs to the receivers? What are the assessment signals in these sites? What signals denote qualites mainly by convention?
The receivers undertake a gamble with this whole method of interaction, however what is important to remember is that in this case receivers are as much signalers as they are receivers. It’s a parallel process unlike in animals or in some human traditions where signaling and receiving could happen sequentially.
The entire concept of online dating I think of as an assessment signal about the people. The amounts of time people spend on the sites, how much and what they write in their description are all assessment signals. It could be hard for receivers to figure out how much time the signaler spent on creating his profile.
That said, receivers bear heavy costs in reading between the lines and making interpretations of the profiles. There is already a theme set among people who date online-- they all use a common language and are aware of the implicit rules. This increases the effort receivers need to put in. As we had discussed in class a while back the signaling process is costlier for a receiver than it is for a signaler. They need to have a lot of skill and understanding of people and signals to make the right choice.
d.What are some kinds of deception that could occur (if you can't think of any, trying searching for "online bad dates")? What mechanisms are in place now for minimizing this?
Deceptions of physical attributes, career, status, interests, wealth, intent, family or friend networks, age, to name a few could occur. In spite of the costs associated with creating profiles online, it is not hard to deceive especially if the intention is to do so. The receivers of deception do not bear very heavy costs of receiving dishonest signals and so the deceptions do not necessarily cause harm. People just stop communicating with those who deceive or block out the deceiver.
Online daters deceive by creating an image of who they aspire to be. It is hard to lie about physical attributes because if the date materializes then a meeting is inevitable at some point and one cannot really change skin tone or eye color that easily and maintain it for a long time. Things like career and status are easier to lie about and harder for the receiver to verify until meeting the person. Deception about age seems to be a common practice and to such an extent that everyone is aware of it and easily add or subtract a few years from the given age.
Some mechanisms currently in place to check deception are:
1. Monetary fee for joining online networks is a mechanism to filter out the trash. People who create profiles only to while away time and fool others may not want to pay to do the same. Caveat is that there are others who can afford to spend some money to be a menace in online networks if that is the intention.
2. Minimum length requirement for a description. To be able to create a description requiring at least 500 or 1000 words might discourage some to go ahead with the whole registration process
3. Dating sites reviewing the profile before accepting to post it online is a good way to screen for bad language or deceptive intentions. Not a fool proof method but again might discourage some if their profile does not get added immediately
4. Search filters can help narrow down the search based on different criterion
5. Use of middle-men to link people looking for each other can channel such connections and keep out those who deceive. The middle-men would have authentic information about online daters. Based on search criteria and the authenticity of the people they would connect people who could then interview and filter out until they find a right match.
Part II
a.Choose an attraction strategy discussed by Buss or Miller (e.g. creation of impressive artwork, denigrating rivals, etc. ). Can you find examples of this on an online site? If not, why not? How does the designof the site suport or make diffcult this strategy?
Miller’s theory of artwork as an indicator of fitness or social psychology is interesting though not unusual. Art and art forms have been around for centuries. People fall into social categories based on interests like painting, music, or theatre indicating social networks of people and what they like to do in their spare time.
I have come across some social networking sites where people post graphics or pictures of artwork instead of themselves. Not a very commonplace thing to do so but it tells a lot about the person’s interest. There is one site where a girl put up a very impressive teenage kind of art on her profile and requested that the art not be mimicked by others. In addition, there are chat forums for art and music where people who share the common interest could connect with each other and take the association beyond simple art discussion. Each person shows art that they are interested in or change according to their latest interest.
Most websites, blogs, chat rooms, online dating sites have the feature of being able to upload pictures and send files to one another so it is not too hard or costly to exchange art and impress people. There are many art forums online for people to discuss art and support fresh talent. These sites may not have the objective of dating, but people do connect and could chose to start dating.
b. Could information be shared among the participants? Would this be helpful? How could you redesign the system to allow for this? Think about the reputation systems we discussed in class. How would this impose costs on deception? What would make it reliable? What would motivate people to use it? http://www.dontdatehimgirl.com/ and http://www.greatboyfriends.com/ provide warnings and recommendations (respectively) - what motivates people here? are these reliable?
Information can certainly be shared among participants to help build a robust system. This would help people who are there for a purposeful cause to not waste time and effort on those who only want to have a good time by lying and bothering people. In fact a rating system like that adopted by eBay may prove helpful to avoid the deceivers out. Or the sites could have a mechanism to give feedback on others. For example, men could warn other men against a particular woman’s profile who is only looking to use a man’s money or women could warm others to watch out for the man who is a flake. This would make people who are deceiving think twice about their actions leading to an in famous reputation.
Websites like the one mentioned above would help people learn how to recognize bad or deceptive profiles saving them the time, effort, and feelings they would otherwise have invested. First time and novice users would find these sites very helpful until they are comfortable with digital interactions. I think help sites like these and to learn from other people’s experiences to prevent making mistakes is motivation enough for people to visit these sites. Also, such sites could actually end up being networks of the honest lot who time the attention and time to warn others
c.How is dating similar or different from other types of "people markets"? Any employment situation is potentially such a market, as is the market for tennis partners, book club members, etc. The costs of deception differ in these cases, as do the structure of the market (are there repeated interactions? is information likely to be shared? what is the relationship among competitors?
The underlying objective of dating always sets it apart from other people networks or markets. However, irrespective of the situation, people still look for honesty, sincerity, and try to avoid the deceptive signals in any network and even in the physical world. Other ’people networks’ centered around skill and talent would not really care about what people look like or where they work if that is irrelevant. For example, one would not care if an art fan worked at a mall or was the vice president of a company, although being affiliated in some capacity to the area of interest does give you a higher status and more credibility.
There is some form of competition in all these networks but the extent and type of competition is decided by the objective of the network. In forums based on information exchange like those for art and book clubs there is a competition of having read more books and visited more number of museums. People display information to be gaining an advantage over on each other. Game forums like chess rooms or tennis partners is all about finding the right match to challenge the intellect or skill. People want to know how many others out there they can beat. In dating sites there are so many fish in the ocean that competition is probably not that visible. Moreover, everyone on the site is aware that people evaluate more than one person before making a choice.
a.What are the costs of writing a profile - terms of effort? money (here are some notes on how pay sites impose useful costs)?
After reading the papers and looking at information online, and having gone through some blurbs that online dating participants write, seems like one of the biggest costs is that of cognitive effort. People put a lot of thought into planning to go online and then creating a profile. Posting the right pictures and describing yourself as accurately to align with your purpose of being online is more effort than people take in regular dating. In addition, those who are sincere endure a relatively higher cost to stand apart from the deceptive profiles. A lot of thought goes into what kind of picture should I post and am sure there are people who take all too many pictures before they select one. As far as writing goes, the honest ones would have many of their friends and family read it before posting it. Going through reviews and edits of profile to make it sound honest and even include the receivers’ discount factor into it all requires a lot of thought and effort.
Regarding money, I think it’s a small cost in order to keep out the dishonest ones. It’s a good practice to channel all the honest people to one spot. It does have its disadvantages if your contract gets renewed or that by good luck a partner is found well before the contract end-date. However, this I feel is not as big a cost to the participants who have a serious intent to defraud or to find a partner.
b.What are the costs of including a photo? What is the function of the photo? Is physical appearance a signal or a quality - and is that different than its function in the face to face world?
As mentioned above, posting the right picture is a big component of the effort taken to participate in online dating. People want to see photographs of others to try and read many things about the person. For some it’s a purely skin-deep beauty and attraction and others try to judge character by looking at the person’s eyes or what they were wearing when the picture was taken. At the signaler’s end, a photo is a strong way to convey facts about one’s self again by choosing what to wear and where to take the picture.
The importance given to a photo here does not seem surprising or inapt at all. Cultures in which arranged marriages are still in practice lay a lot of importance on photos. The boy and girl get to see the other’s photo before deciding whether the family would pursue the alliance. In fact it is not only the person in question who decides by seeing the photo, the entire family puts a lot of importance on the photo. The photo is almost like the deciding straw if all else (like background, education, job etc) has already been verified. It serves the purpose of getting a general idea about the person’s physical features. It works as a signal if a lot of thought is gone into what you where and where you take the picture, this signaling your status or interests. It could also display quality if there are no noticeable efforts in making the picture look good with lighting and posture. Just as people know to discount description information of a profile, similarly they are aware that people would try some amount of manipulation to make the photo look good. However, there is only so much one can camouflage in a picture. There is a lot of importance given to people’s expressions and people derive meaning from the person in the photo’s eyes. It is said that the eyes cannot lie and I think that many look for that sincerity in the eyes of a person. The same is the case with photos in online dating.
c.What are the costs to the receivers? What are the assessment signals in these sites? What signals denote qualites mainly by convention?
The receivers undertake a gamble with this whole method of interaction, however what is important to remember is that in this case receivers are as much signalers as they are receivers. It’s a parallel process unlike in animals or in some human traditions where signaling and receiving could happen sequentially.
The entire concept of online dating I think of as an assessment signal about the people. The amounts of time people spend on the sites, how much and what they write in their description are all assessment signals. It could be hard for receivers to figure out how much time the signaler spent on creating his profile.
That said, receivers bear heavy costs in reading between the lines and making interpretations of the profiles. There is already a theme set among people who date online-- they all use a common language and are aware of the implicit rules. This increases the effort receivers need to put in. As we had discussed in class a while back the signaling process is costlier for a receiver than it is for a signaler. They need to have a lot of skill and understanding of people and signals to make the right choice.
d.What are some kinds of deception that could occur (if you can't think of any, trying searching for "online bad dates")? What mechanisms are in place now for minimizing this?
Deceptions of physical attributes, career, status, interests, wealth, intent, family or friend networks, age, to name a few could occur. In spite of the costs associated with creating profiles online, it is not hard to deceive especially if the intention is to do so. The receivers of deception do not bear very heavy costs of receiving dishonest signals and so the deceptions do not necessarily cause harm. People just stop communicating with those who deceive or block out the deceiver.
Online daters deceive by creating an image of who they aspire to be. It is hard to lie about physical attributes because if the date materializes then a meeting is inevitable at some point and one cannot really change skin tone or eye color that easily and maintain it for a long time. Things like career and status are easier to lie about and harder for the receiver to verify until meeting the person. Deception about age seems to be a common practice and to such an extent that everyone is aware of it and easily add or subtract a few years from the given age.
Some mechanisms currently in place to check deception are:
1. Monetary fee for joining online networks is a mechanism to filter out the trash. People who create profiles only to while away time and fool others may not want to pay to do the same. Caveat is that there are others who can afford to spend some money to be a menace in online networks if that is the intention.
2. Minimum length requirement for a description. To be able to create a description requiring at least 500 or 1000 words might discourage some to go ahead with the whole registration process
3. Dating sites reviewing the profile before accepting to post it online is a good way to screen for bad language or deceptive intentions. Not a fool proof method but again might discourage some if their profile does not get added immediately
4. Search filters can help narrow down the search based on different criterion
5. Use of middle-men to link people looking for each other can channel such connections and keep out those who deceive. The middle-men would have authentic information about online daters. Based on search criteria and the authenticity of the people they would connect people who could then interview and filter out until they find a right match.
Part II
a.Choose an attraction strategy discussed by Buss or Miller (e.g. creation of impressive artwork, denigrating rivals, etc. ). Can you find examples of this on an online site? If not, why not? How does the designof the site suport or make diffcult this strategy?
Miller’s theory of artwork as an indicator of fitness or social psychology is interesting though not unusual. Art and art forms have been around for centuries. People fall into social categories based on interests like painting, music, or theatre indicating social networks of people and what they like to do in their spare time.
I have come across some social networking sites where people post graphics or pictures of artwork instead of themselves. Not a very commonplace thing to do so but it tells a lot about the person’s interest. There is one site where a girl put up a very impressive teenage kind of art on her profile and requested that the art not be mimicked by others. In addition, there are chat forums for art and music where people who share the common interest could connect with each other and take the association beyond simple art discussion. Each person shows art that they are interested in or change according to their latest interest.
Most websites, blogs, chat rooms, online dating sites have the feature of being able to upload pictures and send files to one another so it is not too hard or costly to exchange art and impress people. There are many art forums online for people to discuss art and support fresh talent. These sites may not have the objective of dating, but people do connect and could chose to start dating.
b. Could information be shared among the participants? Would this be helpful? How could you redesign the system to allow for this? Think about the reputation systems we discussed in class. How would this impose costs on deception? What would make it reliable? What would motivate people to use it? http://www.dontdatehimgirl.com/ and http://www.greatboyfriends.com/ provide warnings and recommendations (respectively) - what motivates people here? are these reliable?
Information can certainly be shared among participants to help build a robust system. This would help people who are there for a purposeful cause to not waste time and effort on those who only want to have a good time by lying and bothering people. In fact a rating system like that adopted by eBay may prove helpful to avoid the deceivers out. Or the sites could have a mechanism to give feedback on others. For example, men could warn other men against a particular woman’s profile who is only looking to use a man’s money or women could warm others to watch out for the man who is a flake. This would make people who are deceiving think twice about their actions leading to an in famous reputation.
Websites like the one mentioned above would help people learn how to recognize bad or deceptive profiles saving them the time, effort, and feelings they would otherwise have invested. First time and novice users would find these sites very helpful until they are comfortable with digital interactions. I think help sites like these and to learn from other people’s experiences to prevent making mistakes is motivation enough for people to visit these sites. Also, such sites could actually end up being networks of the honest lot who time the attention and time to warn others
c.How is dating similar or different from other types of "people markets"? Any employment situation is potentially such a market, as is the market for tennis partners, book club members, etc. The costs of deception differ in these cases, as do the structure of the market (are there repeated interactions? is information likely to be shared? what is the relationship among competitors?
The underlying objective of dating always sets it apart from other people networks or markets. However, irrespective of the situation, people still look for honesty, sincerity, and try to avoid the deceptive signals in any network and even in the physical world. Other ’people networks’ centered around skill and talent would not really care about what people look like or where they work if that is irrelevant. For example, one would not care if an art fan worked at a mall or was the vice president of a company, although being affiliated in some capacity to the area of interest does give you a higher status and more credibility.
There is some form of competition in all these networks but the extent and type of competition is decided by the objective of the network. In forums based on information exchange like those for art and book clubs there is a competition of having read more books and visited more number of museums. People display information to be gaining an advantage over on each other. Game forums like chess rooms or tennis partners is all about finding the right match to challenge the intellect or skill. People want to know how many others out there they can beat. In dating sites there are so many fish in the ocean that competition is probably not that visible. Moreover, everyone on the site is aware that people evaluate more than one person before making a choice.
posted by Pal at 8:12 AM
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