Is she the one? Personality judgments from online personal advertisements

Aaron C. Weidman, Joey T. Cheng, Chandra Chisholm, Jessica L. Tracy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The authors examined the linguistic cues that inform personality judgments from online personal advertisements, and whether these judgments are accurate. Advertisers reported their personality, and 2 sets of naïve judges-including one that was seeking a romantic partner-rated advertisers' personality after reading their ads. Judges' impressions of extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability-3 traits that are strongly desired in a romantic partner-were influenced by particular lexical cues, such as word count, emotionality, and profanity. Both sets of judges formed accurate impressions for extraversion, but not other traits. These findings suggest that online daters use linguistic cues to judge the desirability of a potential romantic partner's personality, but that the impressions driven by these cues are not always accurate.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)591-603
Number of pages13
JournalPersonal Relationships
Volume22
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2015

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Social Psychology
  • Anthropology
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Life-span and Life-course Studies

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