Dating apps have become a very common way to find a partner these days, a quick and easy way to meet all kinds of people beyond the circle of friends you usually hang out with. Which entails a series of positive points, but also negative ones. Although, theoretically, it is becoming easier to find a person who fits what you are looking for, thanks to the preference filters that these applications provide, the first impression is still highly conditioned by the person’s physical appearance. And here the factor of trust comes into play, especially on their part.
A study carried out by the University of Würzburg, in Germany, and led by researcher Markus Appel, analyzes how the use of beauty filters in photographs of male Tinder profiles causes physical attractiveness to increase, yes. But, at the same time, it reduces the trust that women feel towards this type of user.
The use of beauty filters is a very common practice to modify the appearance of photographs uploaded to dating application profiles. Especially with the rise in popularity of tools based on artificial intelligence. This is intended to achieve an improvement in physical appearance that makes it easier for the target audience to feel greater attraction towards said profile. This research aims to find out what the consequences of this practice are.
To study the phenomenon, a group of ten young men were used with the same photographs, in an unedited version and another in which they were edited using the FaceApp application. The study was then carried out with 241 women between 20 and 28 years old, heterosexual or bisexual, who had to respond to profiles of men, which included both those with edited and natural images.
The results obtained are that the profiles that presented the photographs that had been altered were perceived as more physically attractive by women than those in the original images. Therefore, it was concluded that, indeed, this method is effective in causing a first impact and attracting attention. However, the double effect that this brings was discovered. And the users also perceived these profiles as less trustworthy than those with the unedited images. Was this distrust enough to change the participants’ minds? Researcher Markus Appel explains that, despite doubts about reliability, greater physical attractiveness was a more important factor and did not prevent users from feeling more interested in dating profiles with edited images.
