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If you haven’t read it, head on over to Mark Brooks blog to read all the comments about personality matching systems. One of the best overviews to date of the various perspectives held by industry experts who design, test and validate matching systems for a living.
Academics from Berkley and other schools are trying to do research projects to find out how effective dating sites’ communications tools, personality testing and other features are. I hope some sites agree to participate in the study, it would be great to see how long relationships formed at Match, True and Eharmony last.
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Blog reactions
9 responses so far ↓
1
Margaret Stuller (Check me out!)
// Mar 9, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I don’t know if I trust these tests, but Dr. Houran sure seems to be the expert in this from those other posts. Is he with an online dating site like other psychologists?
Maggie
2
David Evans (Check me out!)
// Mar 9, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Dr. Houran developed the original True.com test. Alfredo and Helen are both incredibly knowledgeable about personality profiling as well. It’s worth it to seek out their writing and opinions. I know that Helen has done studies on 500,000 singles, which is quite a body of research.
They are all experts with differences in opinion as to the “best” way to match people.
3
Fernando Ardenghi (Check me out!)
// Mar 9, 2007 at 10:11 pm
If Academics from Berkeley do a good research they will find a lack_of_precision / lack_of_reliability problem being suffered by many actual “Compatibility Matching” dating sites.
The cause:
They are using
- DISC based personality tests results OR
- MBTI based personality tests results OR
- Big-5/Big-7 based personality traits tests results
in a multiple_regression relationship_satisfaction_equation, so the whole precision is less than you could achieve searching by your own!!!.
But researchers do not need collaboration from any online dating site, some reverse_engineering will demonstrate that!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering
These “Compatibility Matching” dating sites are like “modern Titanics”, with big and powerful marketing tools; they can spend millions of USD in advertising, but a marketing tool by itself will not sustain a long term strategy!!!
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
4 Online Dating Blog » Does personality testing work? // Mar 10, 2007 at 5:56 am
[...] been a lot of talk on the industry sites recently recently about personality testing and matching on various dating [...]
5
David Evans (Check me out!)
// Mar 11, 2007 at 10:46 am
There seem to be so many differing opinions, opposites attract, attraction to same, different levels of attraction based on chemicals in the brain. Is there a way to make a test that doesn’t necessarily force the creator to subscribe to a particular theory?
6
john (Check me out!)
// Mar 11, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I don’t personally trust online personality tests rather I like hanging on to my intution .
Instead online dating should be judged by it’s communication platform, payment and on how it go about scam and spam.
7
Fernando Ardenghi (Check me out!)
// Mar 11, 2007 at 10:07 pm
“Is there a way to make a test that doesn’t necessarily force the creator to subscribe to a particular theory?”
Of course not! There are two steps:
1) to assess/measure different variables.
2) to calculate “compatibility”.
It seems that what is important in attracting people to one another may not be important in making couples happy, i.e. attraction science and long term romantic relationships are different things.
When Dr. Houran says:
“…it can be argued very strongly that “personality” is among the least important variables we should be considering when assessing the long-term compatibility for a couple!…”
- I think that problem arises because “they are using” multiple/simple linear regression equations instead of more powerful ones!!!
“they are using” means researchers and many online dating sites.
Have you noticed that Cybersuitors.com, the online dating site launched during 2001 by Drs. Wilson and Cousins is a complete fiasco? The matching equation is as simple as C.Q. == 172 – (3 x D)!!!
Have you noticed that WeAttract.com’s tests (launched during 2003 by Match.com with bells, whistles, horns and drums; and discretely buried during 2004, now used in YahooPersonals) have:
great precision to measure what a person is looking for (a point in a scale in different personality factors of the desired partner)
but
low precision to measure that person’s own variables (a shadowed bar in a scale in different personality factors)?
WeAttract.com also tried to tune/synthesize its matching algorithm asking tests takers “what they are looking for” and after some “preliminary matches were delivered to them”, use the feedback provided by them to adjust its matching equation. They failed because they used the Big-7 traits in a multiple_regression relationship_satisfaction_equation and prospective mates noticed that the whole precision is less than they could had achieved searching by their own!!!
The same problem happens with Parship, Meetic, PerfectMatch, YahooPersonals, eHarmony and others (Chemistry?, True?)
If you are giving advise to Chemistry.com, there is a common_sense_success_indicator == first meetings. Also second meetings, third meetings and “so on” are also common_sense_success_indicator!!!
“so on” means to fall in love, stay in love, marriage_for_ever or a long term stable romantic relationship.
Have you noticed the low percentage of persons that reach a “first meeting” date?
And also it seems after the first meeting; in some persons attraction reduces its level OR worse even morphs / metamorphoses to rejection!!!!
And what about the percentage of persons that achieve second, third meetings?
The big and powerful marketing tools of many “Compatibility Matching” dating sites are losing power or will lose power soon.
I hope that I could reach an agreement with an actual online dating site or other partner to world launch the method I had invented (a new quantitative method to assess similarity). Will be interesting to prove if “only high level on personality similarity between mates / couples could be the core of relationship stability and satisfaction == Dyadic Success.” for 24_and_more_years_old_persons interested in serious dating.
["similarity" calculated using other equations, not a regression equation]
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
8 Lovin.mobi » 200 Million OkCupid Questions and Counting // Apr 29, 2007 at 2:23 pm
[...] make sense of whole new lexicon pertaining to the science of matchmaking. I can barely keep up with Fernando talking about Big-5/Big-7 based personality traits tests and multiple_regression [...]
9 » Linux Vendor Launches DatingDNA » Online Dating Insider // Dec 20, 2007 at 3:58 pm
[...] What does a Linux CEO know about personality profiling? I hope that Dr. James Houran and Fernando Ardenghi will check out the system and leave a comment. Those guys live for tearing apart profiling systems and explaining what works and what doesn’t. DISC, Big-5, it’s all greek to me. Here’s an example of their conversations about matching systems. [...]
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