To choose a marriage partner is one of the most serious decisions people make. This decision usually follows a long learning period during which people engage in more informal dating in modern society. However, in today’s busy world, it's more time consuming than ever to find and date a romantic partner. As a result, many people have turned to speed dating as a solution that allows one to meet and interact with a large number of potential partners in a short amount of time. Speed dating is well-established format in the U.S. Back to 2004, only eight dating companies exist. Now, there are more than 30 dating companies to provide easier and faster ways for people to find their partners.
As in all matching markets, determining dating preferences from equilibrium outcomes is difficult because a given correlation of attributes across partners is often consistent with various preference structures. In this project, we want to explore what people are looking for in their speed dating matches, what it takes to become successful in getting approvals from a potential partner, if there exist any gender differences in dating preferences, and if any other factors influence peoples’ decisions. Also, we would like to determine if people really know what they want by comparing their self-reported answers to what actually influences peoples’ decisions.
Speed Dating Experiment (What attributes influence the selection of a romantic partner?)
https://www.kaggle.com/annavictoria/speed-dating-experiment
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The data set we will analyze in this project is named “Speed Dating Experiment”, as found on Kaggle.com. It was compiled by professors Ray Fisman and Sheena Iyengar from Columbia Business School, originally used for their paper “Gender Differences in Mate Selection: Evidence From a Speed Dating Experiment.” It was generated from a series of experimental speed dating events from 2002 to 2004 and includes data related to demographics, dating habits, lifestyle information, an attribute evaluation questionnaire taken when the participants sign up, and each participant’s ratings for others during the 4 minute interactions. Finally, individuals were asked if they would like a second date with their partners and rated again on similar questions after the event, when matches have met with each other and dated for several times.
The subjects of the data were drawn from students in graduate and professional schools at Columbia University. Participants were recruited through a combination of mass e-mail and fliers posted throughout the campus and handed out by research assistants.
The raw dataset contains 195 colunms and 8370 rows. Most variables in the dataset are numeric values. Some of the numeric variables represent scale from 1 to 10, or 1 to 100. Some of the numeric variables also represent categories, such as the race, occupation, the fields people work in, etc. A more detailed data description will be provided after data cleaning. Here are some sample variables from raw dataset listed below,
| Variable | Type |
|---|---|
| Gender | The gender of participant |
| Match | if the participant matches with his/her partner |
| sameRace | if participant and the partner are the same race |
| age_partner | the age of the partner |
| race_partner | the race of the partner |
| field_code | The code of the field where participant work in |
| race | the race of participant |
| interested_activities | the interested activities of the participant |
The dataset also includes questionnaire data gathered from participants at different points in the process. These fields include: demographics, dating habits, self-perception across key attributes, beliefs on what others find valuable in a mate, and lifestyle information. See the Speed Dating Data Key document below for details.
Participants need to assign points between 6 attributes: attractiveness, sincere, intelligent, fun, ambitious and shared interests. The total point ranges from 1 to 10, or 1 to 100. For each participande, the sum of points for each survey should either be 10 points or 100 points.
- What are the most desirable attributes in a female partner? What are the most desirable attributes in a male partner? Does this differ for female partners?
- Which of the 6 attributes actually influence decision making?
- What are correlation coefficient scores in Male and Female (attractiveness, sincerity, intelligence, fun, ambitious, shared interest)?
- How important do people think attractiveness is in potential mate selection vs. its real impact?
- Can people accurately predict their own perceived value in the dating market?
- Are shared interests more important than a shared racial background?
- Are shared occupation more important than a shared interests?
- In terms of getting a second date, is it better to be someone's first speed date of the night or their last?
- Do people go out frequently tend to receive higher perceived value in the dating market?
- How meeting orders influence decision making?
The questions above will be grouped into two or three categories. we will come up with several hypotheses in each category.
To test our hypotheses and answer questions, we perform a varienty of quantitative analyses on speed dating data. Different data visualizations and tables will be generated to answer questions above.
For each question listed above, the anticipated outcomes will be either a table showing the result of statistics analysis or data visualizations. Before conducting analysis on each questions, we will firstly make a hypothesis. The experimental results will be compared with the initial hypothesis. We will then draw the conclustions based on each visualization and discuss the related human-centered problems.
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The survey data is self-reported, and thus has limitations. We assume that participants are mostly honest.
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Although the age and education level of each participant are also very important for this project, most participants are students in graduate school and professional school at Columbia University. We will not include age and education background in the analysis.
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The data was collected from 2002 to 2004. We can assume that the data and result of analysis will still be similar to people's dating preferences today.
To find a significant other is a serious decision people face. First, the different decision made by male and femail in dating is a very interesting topic. Second, to determine if people really know what they want by comparing their self-reported answers to what actually influences peoples’ decisions is another interesting behavioral topic I'm interested in.
This project is inspired by the paper, WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia’s Gender Imbalance. I really like the way that authors approach a problem. I will use similar methods in this project.
I will discuss more human-centered aspects in my final presentation and report.
Racial Preferences in Dating: Evidence from a Speed Dating Experiment Raymond J.Fisman - Sheena S.Iyengar - Emir Kamenica - Itamar Simonson - SSRN Electronic Journal - 2004
Gender Differences in Mate Selection: Evidence From a Speed Dating Experiment R. Fisman - S. S.Iyengar - E. Kamenica - I. Simonson - The Quarterly Journal of Economics - 2006