Sarah Schuiling
Odille Parker

Faculty Mentor(s)

Dr. Jayson Dibble

Document Type

Poster

Event Date

4-10-2015

Abstract

Research indicates that the number of people who use online dating has increased rapidly over the last decade. With this form of technology for building relationships come new potential dangers, including deception. Deception research suggests people lie for a reason. In the case of online dating, the necessity of people to control how they present themselves to others might lead people to lie in order to manage other people’s impressions and thereby attract more dates. Research shows that men and women who lie while using online dating indeed deceive about distinct characteristics. One perspective that may help explain people’s use and acceptability of deception in online dating is the love attitudes framework (Lee, 1988). According to this framework, people’s attitudes toward love can be described according to one or some blend of six different love style categories—Eros, Ludus, Pragma, Storge, Mania, and Agape. This study conducted by survey (N=76) explored the relationship between lie acceptability and the six love styles with an emphasis on Ludus and Mania. It was hypothesized that due to defining characteristics of the Ludus (gameplaying) and Mania (insecure, clingy) love styles, someone who is high on Ludus would be more accepting of lies told online, and those who were highly manic would be less accepting toward deception online. That is, lie acceptability should correlate positively with Ludus and negatively with Mania. As predicted, results indicated a moderately strong, negative correlation between Mania and lie acceptability, and a moderately strong, positive correlation was found between Ludus and lie acceptability. The results for both love styles, however, were not found to be significant.

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