10. Matchmaking Services | Consonance (Gleichklang)

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Matchmaking Services – Principles, Opportunities, and Limits | Consonance (Gleichklang)

Age and Gender Distribution

Age and Gender Distribution

The age and gender distribution of users of matchmaking services differs significantly from that of dating apps:

• For Parship, Dittmar (2021) reported a proportion of 6% for 18- to 24-year-olds, 26% for 25- to 34-year-olds, 27% for 35- to 44-year-olds, 26% for 45- to 54-year-olds, and 15% for members aged 55 and over. However, it remains unclear how reliable this information is, especially since the article is currently only accessible via an internet archive. Another source reports an average age of 40.9% for male users of Parship and 42.6% for female members. The Parship website itself reports a female proportion of 51% and a male proportion of 49%. The non-binary gender is therefore not taken into account.

• For ElitePartner, percentages of 33% for 18- to 35-year-olds, 37% for 36- to 49-year-olds, and 30% for those over 50 are given. Another source gives an average age of 43% for male users of ElitePartner and 44% for female users. On the ElitePartner website itself, it states that 55% of members are women and 45% are men. ElitePartner also does not take non-binary individuals into account.

These figures already make it clear that users of matchmaking services are evidently a completely different group of people than users of dating apps:

• While equal numbers or even slightly more women than men participate in matchmaking services, there is a male surplus on dating apps. In matchmaking services, all age groups are represented, with the strongest representation in the 30 to 60 age range, while on dating apps the 18- to 30-year-old group is particularly strongly represented and participants aged 50 are already a rarity.

The gender and age distribution in matchmaking services influences the type of contacts sought here:

• Indirect evidence for this also comes from the findings of the review article by Abramova et al. (2016), according to which men in online dating more often search for shorter-term relationships and women more often for long-term relationships. The male surplus on dating apps and the slight female surplus in matchmaking services suggest that this search for shorter-term versus long-term relationships also distinguishes the clientele of dating apps from that of matchmaking services.

The significantly more balanced gender ratio as well as the considerably stronger representation of middle and older age groups suggests that in matchmaking services, it is primarily people who are genuinely interested in finding a committed romantic relationship who meet. It can therefore be assumed that there are fewer people in matchmaking services who are looking for short-term contacts, online contacts, or erotic contacts.

This corresponds to the advertising and public image of matchmaking services, which specifically appeal to people seeking romantic commitment. Themes of love, romance, partner happiness, and durability are addressed.

Individuals who are primarily looking for flirtation, entertainment, chats, fun, erotic contacts, or affairs are not addressed by the advertising of matchmaking services. For them, dating apps or dating sites are the more attractive option.

It is therefore to be assumed that the motives of users of matchmaking services are considerably more uniform than the motives of users of dating apps. Direct evidence for this assumption comes from a survey by Consonance using the same questions translated into German as those in the study by Sumter et al. (2017) on the motives of Tinder users:

• While in the study by Sumter et al. with Tinder users, the relationship motive ranked only third with a mean value of just 2.24 on a scale of 1 to 5, among the Consonance members surveyed, the relationship motive led by a wide margin with a mean value of 4.19, followed by the communication motive with a significantly lower mean of 2.81.

However, there are other findings as well:

• Gatter and Hodkinson (2016) surveyed 75 Facebook users on whether they had also used dating apps or matchmaking services and recorded, among other things, age, gender, self-esteem, dating motives, and attitudes toward casual sexuality. Among the participants were 30 Tinder users, 26 users of matchmaking services, and 19 non-users. Surprisingly, no differences in dating motives were found, with the “relationship” motive even being less pronounced among users of matchmaking services than among users of dating apps, and users of matchmaking services actually using them most to “stay in contact with friends.”

The findings are not plausible and appear questionable for methodological reasons:

The sample was extremely small. Moreover, the average age of 23 years among users of matchmaking services was not representative of matchmaking services, where there are very few people in this age group. In fact, participants were recruited through advertising on the author’s Facebook page, including snowball effects. It is also striking that matchmaking services are not actually intended to maintain contacts with friends, nor do they typically offer this function. The best explanation is likely that the respondents did not use genuine matchmaking services, especially since this is already a rarity at this age for cost reasons alone.

So you can assume that with an online matchmaking service, you will find yourself much more strongly in a circle of people seriously searching for a partner than with a dating app. This will reduce the risk that in your partner search – possibly without noticing it – you will encounter people without commitment intentions who are interested in casual contacts or solely in online communication.

The circle of participants in matchmaking services is more suitable for the search for a long-term relationship than the circle of participants in dating apps. The stronger your interest in a long-term relationship, the more matchmaking services are the right choice for you.

Matching Principles and Algorithms

Online matchmaking services do not allow their members to freely search through profiles and do not make suggestions primarily based on geodata. Instead, matching is done on the basis of a computer-controlled matching algorithm, through which individuals who are characterized by particularly good compatibility are suggested.

By forgoing free search, variety and playfulness decrease; instead, members’ activity is more strongly directed toward the serious search for a romantic partnership.

In terms of content, almost all matchmaking services are based on the principle of alignment in important fundamental characteristics of individuals. In doing so, matchmaking services attempt, through more or less psychologically sound and more or less transparent matching algorithms, to exclude unsuitable suggestions from the outset.

Using these matching algorithms, people are to be brought together whose personalities, relationship models, lifestyles, and values are compatible with each other. This is intended to improve the prospects for a romantic relationship that is viable even in the long term.

Even though appearance continues to play a significant role in the self-selection of participants through profile photos, the suggestions are initially made primarily according to other criteria. Appearance comes into play to a large extent only later, during the self-selection of participants after reviewing the suggestions.

This approach distinguishes matchmaking services from dating apps and dating sites, where, due to the dominance of photos and spatial proximity, incompatible people can more quickly find each other for reasons of short-term fascination and greater practicality.

Scientific Classification and Criticism

All online matchmaking services are more or less based on the fundamental assumption that similarity and alignment connect. They claim to be able to determine the compatibility of potentially suitable individuals with their algorithms and, on this basis, to make suggestions with which there is a particularly high potential for a happy and lasting relationship.

In favor of matching based on alignment, there is first of all an extensive and impressive body of research showing that partners are more similar to each other in numerous characteristics than would be expected by chance. Luo (2017) summarized the state of research in a review article:

• According to this, couples are more similar than expected by chance in political orientation, religiosity, authoritarianism, attitudes toward family and gender roles, risk-taking, personal values, intelligence and other mental abilities, subjective well-being, mental illness, alcoholism and other substance dependence, in habits, hobbies, and lifestyle, including alcohol, coffee, and tea consumption, smoking, circadian rhythm, and physical exercise, in nutrition, as well as in broader personality traits such as the Big Five (note: these are extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness), anxiety, self-esteem, positive and negative affectivity, and sensation seeking, although similarity in these general personality traits is not always found and tends to be small.

• More than chance similarity can be observed in married and unmarried couples, after first marriage and after remarriage, in different cultures, in self-selected and arranged partnerships, as well as in heterosexual and same-sex couples, although similarity in same-sex couples is lower than in heterosexual couples.

• Similarity between partners cannot be explained by more frequent opportunities to encounter similar people in one’s own social environment. Nor does the similarity only emerge in the course of a relationship; rather, it is present from the very beginning.

From the perspective of matchmaking services, the results of the research summarized by Luo (2017) are strong arguments for their matching approach:

• The more than chance similarity of couples is interpreted as an expression of a stronger attraction that arises between congruent individuals, which is why they are more likely to come together in partnerships than individuals characterized by opposites. Therefore, it is considered sensible to specifically bring together people who are characterized by high compatibility, even in online partner search.

However, in an influential article, Finkel et al. (2012) raise fundamental concerns against this claim of online matchmaking services:

• The influence of similarity on relationship satisfaction is not proven: Certainly, greater similarity of partners compared to strangers is documented. However, this does not yet give scientific legitimacy to the matching approach of online matchmaking services. Much more decisive is the question of whether similar people also lead better relationships, that is, relationships characterized by high relationship satisfaction. However, the current state of research does not allow this conclusion. Rather, evidence for the influence of similarity on relationship satisfaction is inconclusive, contradictory, or too weak, making effective matching seem questionable.

• The superiority of the algorithms has not been demonstrated: The matchmaking services do not publish any evidence for the effectiveness of their own matching algorithms. It cannot be ruled out that random suggestions would lead to the same results as the matching algorithms. Furthermore, the various matchmaking services do not fully disclose their matching algorithms.

The resulting irritation can be resolved if we distinguish between psychological plausibility and scientific proof. Not everything that is psychologically plausible is (already) proven in a scientifically rigorous sense. For many specific questions, there are not even any or no sufficient scientific studies, so practice must necessarily anticipate theory.

One example of this is the plausible assumption, already discussed above, that for vegan individuals, a relationship with other vegan individuals is typically advantageous. However, there are no studies comparing the relationship satisfaction of couples where only one or both partners are vegan.

So when a matchmaking service uses alignment in vegan lifestyle as a matching criterion, it is, in a sense, anticipating the state of research. It does not have scientific proof for its approach, but it does have good reasons.

This applies not only to the vegan lifestyle as a matching criterion; the situation is similar for almost all psychologically based matching criteria, which, due to insufficient studies, are based less on clear scientific evidence and more on more or less psychologically plausible assumptions or conjectures.

However, it is indeed critical when matchmaking services conduct their matching predominantly or only on the basis of very general personality traits:

• A personality trait is understood as a relatively stable tendency of experience or behavior over time and situations, from which conclusions can be drawn about the individuality of a person. An influential model of personality structure is, for example, the aforementioned five-factor model of personality (McCrae and John, 1992), often referred to as the Big Five, which distinguishes between neuroticism (emotional lability), extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness.

The alignment in general personality traits is – as the review article by Luo (2017) showed – relatively low among couples. Moreover, there are psychologically plausible reasons that argue against a high weighting of similarity in general personality traits. It can be assumed that with the same fundamental beliefs and relationship models, differences in personality structure should be easily compensable.

To illustrate, two thought experiments:

• Differences in conscientiousness: Two partners are both very conscientious and therefore follow their moral fundamental beliefs to a particularly strong degree. If these moral fundamental beliefs differ, conscientiousness will hardly be able to reduce the resulting dissonance. Conversely, if the fundamental beliefs are the same, differences in conscientiousness may nevertheless be balanced against the background of essentially shared evaluations and goals.

• Differences in extraversion: Partners with introverted and extraverted personalities may fit together well if they are committed to the same values together. Perhaps one partner will communicate more outwardly, while the other holds back a bit. Nevertheless, they can cooperate well with each other in the sense of a shared project. In contrast, two extraverted individuals, despite their matching personalities, would hardly be suitable for a relationship with each other if – to give an extreme example – one person advocates for animal protection and the vegan lifestyle, while the other is a passionate hunter and angler.

In fact, not only are the basic alignments in personality between couples relatively small, but studies also provide little evidence that similarity in personality traits plays a role for relationship satisfaction:

• For example, a study by Weidmann et al. (2017) showed no effects of similarity in the personality traits neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and extraversion on the current relationship satisfaction of couples. For future relationship satisfaction measured longitudinally, there were small effects of personality, but they were inconsistent between genders and difficult to interpret. According to this, men would benefit primarily from alignment in low or high neuroticism with regard to their future relationship satisfaction. Women would primarily benefit from alignment in moderate openness to experience. A general effect of personality similarity on relationship satisfaction that is comparable across genders cannot be derived from these findings.

• However, a more recent and methodologically well-controlled couple study (Wu et al., 2019) observed positive effects of alignment in openness to experience and in agreeableness on the life satisfaction of female and male partners. Alignment in the other personality traits examined – conscientiousness, neuroticism, and extraversion – did not play a role for life satisfaction. Beyond pure personality, it was shown that female and male partners reported higher life satisfaction with greater alignment in moral values.

The findings on the influence of general personality similarity on the extent of relationship and life satisfaction are therefore partly contradictory, but certainly do not indicate strong effects that are uniformly directed across genders.

Somewhat clearer are findings that speak for a positive association between alignment in religious beliefs and relationship satisfaction:

• In a representative telephone survey among Christians (Williams and Lawler, 2003), shared religious activities and fewer religious differences were associated with higher relationship satisfaction.

• Karampatsos (2011) observed that alignment in the extent to which partners described themselves as religiously bound and named their religious faith as obligatory, alive, and life-changing correlated with increased relationship satisfaction.

• In another study (Schafer & Kwon, 2017), older couples reported higher relationship satisfaction the more they agreed regarding attendance at services, religious affiliation, and the significance of religion.

There is also some evidence from studies that alignment in the vegan lifestyle can be beneficial:

• Potts & Parry (2010), based on qualitative interviews, introduced the term vegansexuality, by which they understand a preference in the choice of sexual and romantic partners in which ethical aspects of the vegan lifestyle play a central role. The introduction of the construct was based on the observation that some vegan respondents consistently stated that they could not imagine sexuality or a relationship with people who consume animal products.

Even though meaningful quantitative findings are still lacking, the analyses by Potts & Parry (2010) point to the potentially high significance of alignment in the vegan lifestyle for a romantic relationship. This, in turn, is consistent with the assumption that similarity in central characteristics connects.

Overall, there is indeed evidence for a possible positive role of similarity between partners for relationship satisfaction, but this does not refer primarily to similarity in general personality traits. Nevertheless, Finkel et al. (2012) are still right in their criticism that these indications are still not very clear overall and that contradictory findings exist.

Perhaps, however, the already established evidence of higher similarity between couples that is present from the very beginning is much more meaningful than studies on relationship satisfaction:

• It is conceivable that a basic alignment is necessary for partner choice, but this does not necessarily mean that continuing differences among couples who have come together would have to negatively affect relationship satisfaction. If couples come together despite differences, they probably have good reasons for doing so. These reasons may lie, for example, in the alignment of other characteristics that were not surveyed in the respective study but that are much more important for these couples. Due to this alignment, they may then be able to compensate for other differences.

Couples come together because they perceive something that connects them. However, what connects couples can differ from couple to couple, so studies based on averages of broadly applied characteristics do not always have to yield appropriate results.

In studies, only the influence of the alignment that was actually examined can be determined. However, it may be that couples share central characteristics that have a positive effect on relationship satisfaction but that were not asked about in the respective studies. These actually existing but overlooked alignments may be more important for the relationship satisfaction of couples than the alignments or differences in the characteristics that were surveyed.

If we assume that only alignment in central characteristics is important, a number of contradictory findings or null effects can be explained by the fact that this centrality, that is, the significance of characteristics, varies individually between people and couples, so that the methodology of studies that did not capture this centrality led to incorrect conclusions.

This fundamental consideration is supported by some psychological studies:

• Lutz-Zois et al. (2006) surveyed students about the alignment in religious affiliation and interests between them and their partners. In addition, the students were asked to indicate how important this alignment was to them. It was shown that the reported alignment in religious affiliation correlated with relationship satisfaction only when the alignment was considered important. For interests, it was shown that the relationship between perceived alignment and relationship satisfaction was significantly higher for those interests for which a high importance of alignment was indicated.

Also relevant are the results of a series of five studies by Alves (2018), even though they measured attraction rather than relationship satisfaction:

• Alves showed that alignment between individuals in particularly rare characteristics, such as less popular movies, music, hobbies, or foods, led to greater attraction than alignment in more common characteristics. Alves also showed that individuals experienced greater attraction to each other when they were told that they both liked typically less popular Facebook pages (measured by number of likes) than when they were told that they both liked popular Facebook pages. In another experiment, Alves additionally demonstrated that in a dating simulation, alignment in rare interests not only increased attraction but also the intention to actually meet the other person.

Why might this be?

People with rare characteristics are particularly often confronted in society with people who do not share these characteristics. Therefore, people with a rare characteristic are more quickly pushed into an outsider position. All the more pleasing and relieving it can be when a person with the same peculiarity is encountered. The subsequent alignment in the relevant characteristic can eliminate the feeling of alienation and therefore be experienced as particularly positive.

In this sense, rare characteristics are more likely to be central characteristics, so alignment in them is particularly important. When a rare and central characteristic aligns between partners, this may override differences in other characteristics that are typically examined in studies.

A high importance of alignments – but also a high individuality of such alignments – is further supported by findings from a qualitative interview study by Boratav et al. (2021) with multicultural couples in Turkey:

• In the study, couples who differed in religion, ethnicity, and native language were interviewed. It was shown that the attraction between partners had arisen due to a perceived commonality in their values and worldview. One important commonality was that in these multicultural couples, both partners often understood themselves as being rather on the margins of their culture and thus not as typical representatives of their culture.

The title of the study succinctly summarizes the main conclusions and therefore deserves to be quoted:

“More Alike than Different: A Qualitative Exploration of the Relational Experiences of Multicultural Couples in Turkey”. [1]

In an incomplete, simplified view, these multicultural couples were individuals who differed from each other particularly strongly. In the deeper analysis of the authors, however, important commonalities became visible from which their compatibility for each other arose.

In summary, the assumption is highly plausible that alignment in at least central characteristics is generally conducive between partners.

Therefore, in your partner search, you should make sure to get to know a person with whom – in characteristics that are central to you (and vice versa) – there is as much alignment as possible.

The logic of most online matchmaking services is to support this search by using a matching algorithm that emphasizes alignment.

But what about the second main criticism of Finkel et al. (2012), that the matchmaking services have not provided evidence that their specific algorithms lead to happy and stable relationships more often than chance, that is, beyond random?

In fact, no matchmaking service has ever provided this evidence. However, for a dating provider, this evidence would also be difficult to produce. To provide it, members would have to be given partner suggestions that were generated either by the algorithm or randomly. Then, it would have to be examined which partnerships result from them, and these would have to be compared with regard to partner happiness and durability.

Such a study would undoubtedly be highly interesting. However, members of dating platforms would probably be outraged if they were actually given random suggestions. It would also be a mammoth task not only to obtain a sufficient comparative number of cases for such a comparison, but also to observe the resulting couples over years in a longitudinal study.

So the criticism is formally correct, but not practical. Neither singles looking for a partner nor dating providers can wait for a study that would provide definitive proof of the superiority of their psychological matching principles.

It is true that online matchmaking services cannot claim scientificity in a strict sense. Online matchmaking is not a scientifically validated methodology, but rather a set of rules of thumb based on a more or less elaborate psychological-mathematical foundation.

Nevertheless, there are good arguments for the matching approach, since in the overall assessment, the available information suggests that people with a higher basic alignment have better prospects of a viable relationship with each other than people who are characterized primarily by differences.

So do not expect an online matchmaking service to be able to provide you with scientifically proven perfect partners. The maximum you can expect is that a certain preselection will be made available to you, which is better than a random selection, not least because obviously unsuitable individuals have been excluded.

The matchmaking services only provide an initial preselection. Exploring possible compatibility and existing relationship opportunities is then left solely to you and the potentially suitable partners.

[1] Original in English: “More Alike than Different: A Qualitative Exploration of the Relational Experiences of Multicultural Couples in Turkey.” (Boratav et al., 2021)

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