Swiping right for “The One”: Exploring single people’s implicit relationship beliefs and dating app behaviour

Abstract

Online dating has grown in popularity in the last decade, but who uses online dating more regularly and what impact does it have on single people? Despite singlehood being on the rise and an important precursor to romantic relationships, very little research has been conducted on how single people think, feel, and approach online dating. Analysing single people’s mindsets is one way to better understand their beliefs about and behaviours toward online dating. There are two types of mindsets: Destiny and growth mindsets. People with a higher destiny mindset believe in that everyone has a compatible “soulmate” and only relationships with a “soulmate” guarantees relationship success. In contrast, people with a higher growth mindset believe that successful relationships require work, effort, and time. How might these mindsets influence single peoples’ willingness to use online dating? In this honours study, I examined single people’s destiny and growth beliefs and their online dating behaviour. Participants were all SFU undergraduate students taking psychology courses. Data was collected through the Research Participant System (RPS) and analysed in SPSS. I used logistic and multiple regression to analyse my data. This presentation will explore in-depth existing implicit belief research on singlehood, my study’s findings, and its implications. This research highlights the importance of studying underlying beliefs about relationships when considering single peoples’ modern dating practices