A new online dating study reveals that uploading an enhanced profile picture may act as an obstacle in meeting your match if you are a woman.
An experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut to find out how people judge each other based on their online dating profile photos revealed that placing enhanced photos on dating websites returned different results for women and men.
The researchers presented 671 volunteers with a single photo that was either casual or enhanced and of a man or a woman, according to records on ABC News.
According to the researchers men were less like to trust women who posted an "enhanced" photo with good angles, make-up and good lighting. However, that didn't stop the men wanting to date those women, lead study author Rory McGloin, a communications professor at UConn said.
This implies that despite the fact that men suspect that a woman may not look exactly like she does in her profile picture, they are still willing to take the risk and date with her, The Times Of India noted.
McGloin said, "They thought she was more attractive, they wanted to go on a date with her ... but they didn't trust her."
On the other hand, women found men with enhanced photos to be more trustworthy, according to their findings, which will be presented at the International Communication Association annual conference later in May.
Attractiveness of the male acted as a halo as once women found a man to be attractive, they assumed all of the other traits were good too, McGloin explained.
Researchers focused on 305 participants from ages 17 to 36. They were asked a series of questions to find out the profiles physical attractiveness, similarity to the participant, trustworthiness and finally their desire to date.
McGloin, who isn't a psychologist, but studies effects of media on behavior noted that his experiment eliminated "relative" attractiveness by only presenting each person with one photo and asking them a series of questions about it. But it was not a field study, he said, and the participants were gutsy because their action had no upshot.
