Attn: all you thirsty fuckers ready for the weekend.
All your efforts to up your Tinder game to stratospheric levels might be to waste, because new research from the University of Sydney’s School of Psychology reckons that you judge a person’s face based off the last one you saw.
The study sourced 60 male profiles from the ‘Hot or Not ‘ dating app (well, that’s one use for the app, at least) and asked sixteen female undergraduates to rate them, quite literally, hot or not.
Researchers found that participants were more likely to declare a face attractive if the previous face was also attractive. It’s a concept in the visual sciences known as serial dependence, but you might know it by another name:
“Serial dependence was the scientific backbone of our study,” said lead author of the study, Postdoctoral Research Associate Jessica Taubert. “If serial dependence is true, the value or judgement in one situation is dependent on the judgement of another. Our study found that serial dependence is present in Tinder users’ judgement.”
“In the second experiment we asked whether the influence of the previous profile picture is perceptual in nature or a cognitive bias: sometimes people are lazy and fall into a pattern of responding, like pushing the same button over and over again.”
Moral of the story: Keep your friends close, but keep your hotter friends closer.
Photo: Real Life Tinder.
