Simulated online dating offers insight into real-life relationships

Psychologists at the University of Illinois have explored how people manage romantic ties by looking at the choices that people make in simulated online dating relationship.

London, Aug. 8 : Psychologists at the University of Illinois have explored how people manage romantic ties by looking at the choices that people make in simulated online dating relationship.

Published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the study standardizes the behaviour of the romantic partner, and clarifies how each participant's outlook influences his or her choices and satisfaction with the romance.

The online study took participants through a series of scenarios about a relationship with a fictional partner. Each scenario ended with two options, from which the participant chose his or her response.

"The interesting thing is that all the participants were reacting to the same person, the same scenario. And yet the pattern of their responses was quite different," said psychology graduate student Amanda Vicary, a co-author on the study with psychology professor R. Chris Fraley.

The researchers modelled their study on a 1979 Random House interactive fiction series, namely 'Choose Your Own Adventure', which allowed the reader to select from multiple options at critical points in the story. Each choice directed the reader to a new scenario.

Vicary said that the sequential nature of the study was more like an actual relationship because it involved ongoing interactions with the same partner.

By assessing how much the person trusts, confides in or relies on a current or former romantic partner, the researchers were able to profile the participant's level of level of security or insecurity, anxiety, or intimacy-avoidance in romantic relationships.

The researchers call this assessment of participants' attachment styles Experience in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) inventory.

After completing the ECR-R inventory and reading instructions, participants answered a series of 20 relationship questions. Each question described an event in the relationship and gave the participant an opportunity to select one of two options for responding to the event. One of the options enhanced the relationship, while the other undermined it.

The study included three experiments, each involving a different group of participants. In the first, all participants read the same story and selected from the same options at the end of each scenario. In the second, a participant interacted with either a supportive or unsupportive partner throughout the exercise. In both experiments, the participants' choices had no influence on the behaviour of their partners or on the scenarios.

In the third experiment, however, their choices did influence the simulated partners' responses. If the participant made a relationship-enhancing choice, he or she got a positive verbal response from the simulated partner and then moved to a new scenario involving a supportive version of that partner. Making a negative choice elicited a negative, rejecting response from the partner and a new scenario in which the partner behaved in an unsupportive way.

The researchers found that a participant's attachment style was a good predictor of the pattern of his or her choices.

"People who are highly insecure are more likely to interpret their partners' actions in a negative way and then choose to respond in kind," said Vicary, adding that the more secure individuals more often chose the positive, relationship-enhancing options.

As the study progressed through the list of scenarios, most of the participants increased the rate at which they made positive choices. The anxious or avoidant participants increased their relationship-enhancing choices more gradually than their peers, and this was true even in the third experiment, when their choices elicited immediate feedback in the form of a positive or negative response.

"It is interesting that even when highly insecure individuals experience responses as a direct function of their actions, they are still relatively slow to adopt beneficial relationship choices. It is possible that insecure individuals simply do not realize the detrimental impact that their actions have on their relationships," the authors wrote.

The study showed that participants who interacted with supportive partners were quicker to make positive choices, and tended to be more satisfied with the interaction. It was also found that positive choices were associated with more satisfaction in relationship.

"This finding is noteworthy because it demonstrates that one's own internal dynamics affect relationship satisfaction independently of the behaviour of one's partner," the authors wrote.

ANI