To Tinder or not to Tinder, that's the question: An individual differences perspective to Tinder use and motives

Abstract Tinder is quickly becoming one of the most popular mobile dating applications for meeting people within the vicinity. From a personality theory perspective, it is important to find out what motivates people to use Tinder and what makes them different from those who never used the application. The present study investigated how the Five-Factor Model of personality relates to both Tinder use and motives. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted on 502 single emerging adults. Single Tinder users are more extraverted and open to new experiences than single non-users, whereas single non-users tend to be more conscientious than single Tinder users. Additionally, the findings provide several unique insights into how individual differences in singles can account for Tinder motives by supporting nearly all hypotheses. This study thus adds to a growing body of literature that examines traditional personality theories in the context of computer-mediated online environments.

[1]  Jacob Cohen.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 1969, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[2]  Katelyn Y. A. McKenna,et al.  Plan 9 From Cyberspace: The Implications of the Internet for Personality and Social Psychology , 2000 .

[3]  P. Markey,et al.  The role of extraversion and neuroticism in influencing anxiety following computer-mediated interactions , 2009 .

[4]  Stefanie Duguay.  Dressing up Tinderella: interrogating authenticity claims on the mobile dating app Tinder , 2016 .

[5]  Katherine M. White,et al.  Psychological Predictors of Young Adults' Use of Social Networking Sites , 2009, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[6]  A. Meade,et al.  Identifying careless responses in survey data. , 2012, Psychological methods.

[7]  Archana Krishnan,et al.  The influence of biological and personality traits on gratifications obtained through online dating websites , 2015, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[8]  S. Srivastava,et al.  The Big Five Trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. , 1999 .

[9]  Christopher J. Carpenter,et al.  The players of micro-dating: Individual and gender differences in goal orientations toward micro-dating apps , 2016, First Monday.

[10]  K. Kendler,et al.  Low extraversion and high neuroticism as indices of genetic and environmental risk for social phobia, agoraphobia, and animal phobia. , 2007, The American journal of psychiatry.

[11]  Paul T. Costa,et al.  Brief Versions of the NEO-PI-3 , 2007 .

[12]  Robert F Krueger,et al.  What is conscientiousness and how can it be assessed? , 2014, Developmental psychology.

[13]  Stephanie S. Spielmann,et al.  Settling for less out of fear of being single. , 2013, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[14]  P. Costa,et al.  Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) , 1992 .

[15]  Corinne L. Mason,et al.  Tinder and humanitarian hook-ups: the erotics of social media racism , 2016 .

[16]  Tel Amiel,et al.  Individual differences in Internet usage motives , 2004, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[17]  R. Hoyle,et al.  Personality and sexual risk taking: a quantitative review. , 2000, Journal of personality.

[18]  Stephanie Tom Tong,et al.  Breaking boundaries: the uses & gratifications of grindr , 2014, UbiComp.

[19]  Janelle Ward,et al.  What are you doing on Tinder? Impression management on a matchmaking mobile app , 2017 .

[20]  A. Brem,et al.  Pragmatic inferences and self-relevant judgments: The moderating role of age, prevention, focus, and need for cognition , 2016 .

[21]  Tracii Ryan,et al.  Who uses Facebook? An investigation into the relationship between the Big Five, shyness, narcissism, loneliness, and Facebook usage , 2011, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[22]  Elisabeth Timmermans,et al.  Development and validation of the Tinder Motives Scale (TMS) , 2017, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[23]  Who engages in serious and casual sex relationships? An individual differences perspective , 2015 .

[24]  T. McGlashan,et al.  Validity of DAS perfectionism and need for approval in relation to the five-factor model of personality , 2004 .

[25]  Craig Ross,et al.  Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use , 2009, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[26]  P. Frazier,et al.  “I’ll never be in a relationship like that again”: Personal growth following romantic relationship breakups , 2003 .

[27]  Carolina Cambre,et al.  Screened Intimacies: Tinder and the Swipe Logic , 2016 .

[28]  Hans J. Eysenck,et al.  Manual of the Eysenck personality questionnaire , 1975 .

[29]  K. Gatter,et al.  On the differences between Tinder™ versus online dating agencies: Questioning a myth. An exploratory study , 2016 .

[30]  W. Velicer.  Determining the number of components from the matrix of partial correlations , 1976 .

[31]  Ingrid K. Weigold,et al.  Examination of the equivalence of self-report survey-based paper-and-pencil and internet data collection methods. , 2013, Psychological methods.

[32]  P. Lachenbruch.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) , 1989 .

[33]  Andrew N. Christopher,et al.  Conscientiousness and Work Ethic Ideology A Facet-Level Analysis , 2008 .

[34]  Paul W. Eastwick,et al.  Online Dating , 2012, Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society.

[35]  Teresa Correa,et al.  Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users' personality and social media use , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[36]  K. Schmidt,et al.  Partner search in the digital age. Psychological characteristics of Online-Dating- Service-Users and its contribution to the explana- tion of different patterns of utilization. , 2010 .

[37]  L. Simms,et al.  Personality disorder models and their coverage of interpersonal problems. , 2016, Personality disorders.