Originality in online dating profile texts: How does perceived originality affect impression formation and what makes a text original?

Tess van der Zanden; Alexander P. Schouten; Maria B. J. Mos; Emiel J. Krahmer

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0274860

Originality in online dating profile texts: How does perceived originality affect impression formation and what makes a text original?

Tess van der Zanden^*, Alexander P. Schouten, Maria B. J. Mos, Emiel J. Krahmer

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper investigates origins and consequences of perceived profile text originality. The first goal was to examine whether the perceived originality of authentic online dating profile texts affects online daters' perceptions of attractiveness, and whether perceptions of (less) desired partner personality traits mediate this effect. Results showed the positive impact of perceived profile text originality on impression formation: text originality positively affects perceptions of intelligence and sense of humor, which improve impressions of attractiveness and boost dating intention. The second goal was to explore what profile text features increase perceptions of profile text originality. Results revealed profile texts which were stylistically original (e.g., include metaphors) and contained more and concrete self-disclosure statements were considered more original, explaining almost half of the variance in originality scores. Taken together, our results suggest that perceived originality in profile texts is manifested in both meaning and form, and is a balancing act between novelty and appropriateness.

Original language	English
Article number	e0274860
Pages (from-to)	1-22
Number of pages	22
Journal	PLOS ONE
Volume	17
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274860
Publication status	Published - 19 Oct 2022

Keywords

Intelligence
Intention
Internet
Perception
Personality
Text Messaging

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title = "Originality in online dating profile texts: How does perceived originality affect impression formation and what makes a text original?",

abstract = "This paper investigates origins and consequences of perceived profile text originality. The first goal was to examine whether the perceived originality of authentic online dating profile texts affects online daters' perceptions of attractiveness, and whether perceptions of (less) desired partner personality traits mediate this effect. Results showed the positive impact of perceived profile text originality on impression formation: text originality positively affects perceptions of intelligence and sense of humor, which improve impressions of attractiveness and boost dating intention. The second goal was to explore what profile text features increase perceptions of profile text originality. Results revealed profile texts which were stylistically original (e.g., include metaphors) and contained more and concrete self-disclosure statements were considered more original, explaining almost half of the variance in originality scores. Taken together, our results suggest that perceived originality in profile texts is manifested in both meaning and form, and is a balancing act between novelty and appropriateness.",

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note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Chris van der Lee for his effort put into writing the scripts used to calculate the texts{\textquoteright} TF-IDF scores. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 van der Zanden et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.",

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AU - Krahmer, Emiel J.

N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Chris van der Lee for his effort put into writing the scripts used to calculate the texts’ TF-IDF scores. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 van der Zanden et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2022/10/19

Y1 - 2022/10/19

N2 - This paper investigates origins and consequences of perceived profile text originality. The first goal was to examine whether the perceived originality of authentic online dating profile texts affects online daters' perceptions of attractiveness, and whether perceptions of (less) desired partner personality traits mediate this effect. Results showed the positive impact of perceived profile text originality on impression formation: text originality positively affects perceptions of intelligence and sense of humor, which improve impressions of attractiveness and boost dating intention. The second goal was to explore what profile text features increase perceptions of profile text originality. Results revealed profile texts which were stylistically original (e.g., include metaphors) and contained more and concrete self-disclosure statements were considered more original, explaining almost half of the variance in originality scores. Taken together, our results suggest that perceived originality in profile texts is manifested in both meaning and form, and is a balancing act between novelty and appropriateness.

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Originality in online dating profile texts: How does perceived originality affect impression formation and what makes a text original?

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