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An Experimental Study of Men’s and Women’s Personal Ads

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Abstract

Personal ads have long served as a potentially rich source of information for social scientists regarding what women and men appear to be looking for in a partner and what they believe potential partners are looking for in them. Almost every study of this type has content analyzed existing personal ads in print media or, more recently, on the Internet. Many of the limits of this research approach were addressed in a study by Strassberg and Holty (2003) utilizing an experimental research design. Contrary to theory, prior research, and prediction, the most popular female seeking male (FSM) ad in that study was one in which the woman described herself as “financially independent, successful [and] ambitious,” producing over 50 % more responses than the next most popular ad, describing the writer as “very attractive and slim.” The present study replicated the Strassberg and Holty methodology, placing the same fictitious MSF and FSM personal ads using far more accessible Internet personal ad sites. Contrary to the previous finding, but consistent with evolutionary theories and social psychological experiments (e.g., Townsend & Wasserman, 1998), ads that presented the woman as attractive and the man as financially successful elicited the most interest.

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Notes

  1. It is obvious that the nature of this project meant that participants would not know that they were in a study and, consequently, would not be in a position to provide informed consent. The ethical dilemma thus created was apparent to us. In our presentation to our IRB, we offered that (1) there was no equivalent research design that provided for informed consent while allowing for both the experimental control and external validity of our proposed design, (2) we believed that participation in this study represented no more than “minimal risk” to the well-being of participants, and (3) no one knows how many personal ads (particularly those placed on anonymous, no-cost, Internet sites) are “for real.” We also advised the IRB of our decision to e-mail each person who responded to any of our ads within a few days after the ad’s last appearance, at which time all identifying information from the response to the ad was deleted. We chose not to retroactively inform participants of their participation in this study, believing this could unnecessarily upset some participants. Rather, the e-mail they received, purportedly coming from the same person who wrote the ad, informed them that the ad writer appreciated their response to the ad, but that they had just gotten back with their previous boyfriend/girlfriend and would therefore not be pursuing any of the responses to the ad. Our IRB approved this research protocol.

  2. In this and subsequent analyses, chi square was used to compare the number of responses to one add to the number received by one or more other ads. In each case, the observed values were the number of responses received by each ad being compared while the expected values were the total responses received by the compared ads divided by the number of ads being compared. Effect size for each analysis was computed using Cramér's phi (φ) statistic wherein a score of .10 is considered a small effect size, .30 a medium effect size, and .50 a large effect size.

  3. Of course, the rapidly-changing nature of digital communication (i.e., the Internet is a very different place than it was in 1997), it would not be possible to utilize bulletin boards in a true replication of the prior experiment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 S. 1530 E., Room 502, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Donald S. Strassberg & Brittany L. English

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  1. Donald S. Strassberg
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  2. Brittany L. English
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Correspondence to Donald S. Strassberg.

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Strassberg, D.S., English, B.L. An Experimental Study of Men’s and Women’s Personal Ads. Arch Sex Behav 44, 2249–2255 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0428-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0428-6

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