Most, if not all of us have heard about, read about, or used the Tinder app ourselves. Ah, Tinder. The dating app that has swept the nation and allowed for infinite date nights and awkward morning after experiences. Morgan (2017) reports that Tinder has actually been the most downloaded lifestyle app in the Apple Appstore for the last two years. This means that an incredible amount of people are downloading, and most likely actively using the app to meet members of the dating pool.
For those who may not know, Tinder is essentially a dating app that allows each user to create a profile using approximately 6 photos of him or herself, and a short “bio” section to write something witty enough to catch someone’s eye. Once your profile is created, the journey of swiping begins. You’ll be presented with a photo of the gender you selected that you are interested in, and you’ll have the option to view more of this person’s photos as well as their “bio”. After viewing, you’ll have to choose to either swipe left for “nope” if you’re not interested, or swipe right to “like” this person. So, yes, you are essentially choosing based upon nothing but physical looks. If you swipe right, nothing happens immediately; but, if that person you “liked” also swipes right on your profile and “likes” you, then that will create a “match” and you’ll both be notified, with the option to message each other privately. This is where conversations begin and plans are set up to set out on dates or meet-ups.
Now, with how rapidly this app has blown up over the last two years, it’s created a sense of curiosity in the psychological research world to determine what the so-called hype is. There are plenty of apps available that encourage dating, so what is it about Tinder that grabs the public’s interest? A social psychologist named Jeanette Purvis wrote her PhD dissertation at the University of Hawaii on the topic of sexual conflict on Tinder (Morgan, 2017). In her research, Purvis concluded that Tinder’s interface/system has a large role in its success. She explains that it’s set up nearly perfectly to impose the desired psychological conditioning effects in its users, such as the need or desire to continue (Morgan, 2017). Tinder uses a “variable ratio reward schedule”, which essentially means that Tinder randomly disperses the profiles it believes you will “like” (Morgan, 2017). Once we swipe right on a profile, we feel a reward because we start thinking about the potential of that match. We then find ourselves seeking that same reward-type feeling again and continue swiping. With Tinder’s interface randomly dispersing profiles we may like, it causes us to continue swiping because those profiles will appear at the ‘perfect’ time, just as we are about to close out. The interface allows for a user to never be swiping too long before a potential match-worthy profile pops up; and therefore, we begin to expect it at certain points, which keeps us engaged and swiping.
Purvis goes on to describe this reward-based system as related to the workings of a drug addict’s brain (Morgan, 2017). She explains how research has found that the expectation we have of the drug typically causes more of a release of the “feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine” than the actual drug itself (Morgan, 2017). That said, the expectation of the next Tinder swipe being a “match” and leading to that reward is releasing more of that feel good feeling than the actual match itself. So, Tinder’s swiping interface is inducing sensations closely related to those experienced in addiction. Therefore, it appears that, in certain situations and circumstances, Tinder has the traits to become an addiction itself, and possibly already has for some users. I found it incredibly interesting that an app’s user interface could have this strong of an impact on our psychological processes.
References
Morgan, W. (2017). A Social Psychologist Explains How Tinder has Become a Real Addiction. Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@whitneyvmorgan/a-social-psychologist-explains-how-tinder-has-become-a-real-addiction-ffa18ce4ff17
In terms of the tinder “swiping” phenomenon, I have two theories of my own. Firstly being one that was inspired by your reference to the “swiping” that may stimulate reward seeking pathways that function similarly in addiction. Is it not similar to gambling in this sense? You felt a reward after a promising swipe, and anticipating the next swipe you are swiping like crazy, reward-centers in the brain lighting up like a Christmas tree. Therefore, when a good swipe finally shows up, it’s similar to winning a big jackpot. Another theory I have is that this is a fast-decision making experience. Past research has shown that those who take longer to make a decision, are usually less satisfied with their final choice than those who chose quickly. Going with this theory, it is possible that TInder has been successful by forcing people to make quick decisions, which, in the end, they have not had time to “overthink” and are more satisfied with. Finally, it is also possible that the whole making decisions based on “physical attractiveness” component of the Tinder app satisfy out innate biological, evolutionary need to choose partners that are the most genetically fit to produce offspring. Either way, I enjoyed your topic, great blog post!
I enjoyed reading your post. I learned a lot about Tinder, and I was amazed to find out that this app has actually been the most downloaded lifestyle app in the Apple Appstore for the last two years. Tinder uses the same tricks as gambling or lottery by displaying a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement. This schedule creates a steady, high rate of responding. No surprise that people become so addict to Tinder. I wonder if Tinder users rely more on physical attractiveness or they take the time to read the short bio provided before deciding to swipe. Is Tinder more like the computer match study? In this study students were deceptively told that a computer would use each student’s personal data to affect the best match for an evening. At the end of the evening participants privately reported whether they would like to see their matched dates again. Only one variable predicted whether a given person wanted to see his or her date again: the date’s physical attractiveness! Or is Tinder more like the T-Shirt Study? The 200 participants for this study were single; straight college men and women, who first provided information that a prospective might want to know: like the Tinder short bio. This information was printed on a T shirt worn by each participant. Each participant’s goal was to speak with as many participants of the other sex as possible and to identify possible dates. Among other findings, this study discovered that once his participants had engaged in all their face to face “minidates”, physical attractiveness actually lost much of its selection power, because each t-shirt displayed the personal information necessary to decide whether to initiate interaction.
Gross, A. E. (1983). Date selection: The all-important first meeting. Unpublished manuscript.
Walster, E., Aronson, V., Abrahams, D., & Rottmann, L. (1966). Importance of physical attractiveness in dating behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 508–516.