TY - JOUR
T1 - Out of My League
T2 - Dating Preferences of Individuals with Social Anxiety Disorder
AU - Strulov, Talia Shechter
AU - Gilboa-Schechtman, Eva
AU - Aderka, Idan M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.
PY - 2025/4
Y1 - 2025/4
N2 - Background: Close relationships and especially romantic relationships are paramount to mental and physical health. Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) experience difficulties in forming romantic relationships. Method: We examined explicit and implicit partner preferences of individuals with (n = 52) and without SAD (n = 52) in a lab-based task that simulates online dating applications. Results: Consistent with our preregistered hypotheses, individuals with SAD indicated their desire to meet others who were less attractive and less dominant compared to individuals without SAD. In addition, women swiped right in response to profile pictures that were more attractive and more dominant compared to men. Finally, discrepancies between explicit and implicit measures of partner preferences in attractiveness, dominance, and positivity were found. Conclusions: Our findings expand the understanding of mating selection strategies in SAD and can inform therapeutic interventions for the disorder.
AB - Background: Close relationships and especially romantic relationships are paramount to mental and physical health. Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) experience difficulties in forming romantic relationships. Method: We examined explicit and implicit partner preferences of individuals with (n = 52) and without SAD (n = 52) in a lab-based task that simulates online dating applications. Results: Consistent with our preregistered hypotheses, individuals with SAD indicated their desire to meet others who were less attractive and less dominant compared to individuals without SAD. In addition, women swiped right in response to profile pictures that were more attractive and more dominant compared to men. Finally, discrepancies between explicit and implicit measures of partner preferences in attractiveness, dominance, and positivity were found. Conclusions: Our findings expand the understanding of mating selection strategies in SAD and can inform therapeutic interventions for the disorder.
KW - Affiliation
KW - Dating applications
KW - Explicit and implicit measures
KW - Romantic relations
KW - Social anxiety disorder
KW - Social rank
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105001084410&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85200150248&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10608-024-10518-5
DO - 10.1007/s10608-024-10518-5
M3 - Article
SN - 0147-5916
VL - 49
SP - 338
EP - 349
JO - Cognitive Therapy and Research
JF - Cognitive Therapy and Research
IS - 2
ER -