(Julia Lubas)
Elizabeth Bruch, a professor in the Center for the Study of Complex Systems and the Department of Sociology, has been working with colleagues in LSA to figure out exactly how people find romance online. They’ve seen some telling patterns in how people choose partners. Bruch and her colleagues examined romantic encounters in an online dating service—more than one million interactions among nearly 2,000 people in New York and New Jersey. The researchers found that people make the process less overwhelming by deciding on dates in two simple steps: screening matches quickly for obvious flops, and then investing more time to closely consider the rest. “People tend to invoke their deal-breakers earlier in the mate-choice process,” Bruch says. After the elimination round, people continue their search with a more discerning eye. They apply more of a sliding scale to decide whether to send a message.
