Investigation into Gender Differences in the Language of Personal Profiles on Dating Websites

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Investigation into Gender Differences in the Language of Personal Profiles on Dating Websites

Hypothesis: Are there differences in the language used in personal profiles on dating websites based on gender, and are the genders represented differently?

Introduction

For my language investigation I will be looking at gender differences in internet dating profiles. I will consider differences in lexical choices, in particular whether there is evidence of the gender differences in language use claimed by Robin Lakoff in her publication Language and a Woman’s Place (1975). Also, whether there are greater or lesser differences in lexical choices between the genders depending on age. It was speculated at the time Lakoff’s research was published that as women became more equal to men, gender differences would not be as noticeable in language, as they were the result of inequalities between the sexes in other areas.

I will also consider what whether the content of the profiles in my sample show evidence of differences in what is desirable in men and women. Past studies into newspaper lonely hearts ads, which internet dating profiles could be considered a modern manifestation of in many ways, found men and women were more likely to request and advertise about themselves different things. I will investigate whether these same differences are evident today in internet dating profiles, and whether there are other gender differences not mentioned in the lonely hearts ad studies.

Finally I will look for evidence of sexist language in the profiles. I will use all of this information to help me consider whether internet dating profiles contain notable examples of differences in language use between the genders, and if so what the possible reasons for these differences might be.


Methodology

The data I use in this investigation will be personal profiles written by individuals about themselves taken from the popular dating website www.match.com.  My sample will consist of 18 profiles, divided equally by gender and also into three different age categories: 20-29, 40-49 and 60-69. I chose this number of examples as I believe it to be a large enough sample to be able to make general assumptions from to a certain extent, whilst still being small enough to be manageable to work with. The sample is divided into the different age categories in an attempt to make it more representative of the different types of people who use internet dating websites, and also so comparisons can be made between the categories, it might be possible for example that older/younger people use language in a way that is more stereotypical for their gender. The sample will be selected randomly by using the website search feature to find individuals who fit the age and gender criteria for each group, and then selecting the first three results for each search.

In the investigation I will used a combination of statistical methods and content analysis. Concepts that can be translated into a numerically measurable form will be, and results will be presented using diagrams. For example to measure whether Lakoff’s assertion that women use more empty adjectives than men is correct in the case of internet dating profiles, I will find the mean number of empty adjectives contained in profiles belonging to males, and compare this to the mean number contained in the profiles of females.


Analysis

Lakoff’s assumptions about the language of women

In the 1975 publication Language and Woman’s Place, Robin Lakoff [1] suggested that there are specific features of language use by women that mark it out from the language commonly used by men. Some of these are only evident in spoken language, but others can be applied to written examples also, particularly in the case of internet dating website profiles, where non-standard grammar, and other features more commonly found in spoken English are often evident. I have chosen two of Lakoff’s assumptions, and investigated whether they are evident in my sample of dating website profiles.

Use of Hedges

One on the characteristics suggested by Lakoff as being more commonly observed in females was the use of hedges, adverbs/adjectives or clauses designed to lessen the impact of a statement, for example “sort of”, “slightly”, “I’m not an expert but”.  In order to investigate whether this gender difference was observable in the language of dating website personal profiles, I recorded how many times hedges were used in each of the 18 profiles in my sample, and found the mean number of uses for each gender, the findings are presented below.

Within my sample there appears to be a significant gender bias in the use of hedges, with women using the devices almost twice as often as men. This supports Lakoff’s theory that the device is a feature more commonly found in female language use. However the variation between individuals in the number of times hedges were used varied dramatically, particularly the females. One woman used seven different hedges within her profile, whilst another used none at all. The most hedges used in a single male profile were three. This may suggest that this stereotypical feature is only evident in the language of some women, and that others communicate in a way Lakoff would consider typically male, with more direct statements and less use of hedges.

It has been suggested that as the sexes become more equal, so will their language use, and that as women begin to consider themselves the equals of men, they will feel less need to use hedges to soften the impact of their statements. In 1975 when Lakoff’s book was published, although the feminist revolution had begun, there was still a great deal more sexism evident in everyday society than can be observed today. Because of this I decided to consider the possibility that the individual differences in the number of hedges used by different women could be related to age, with younger women who have grown up considering themselves the equals of their male peers more confident about expressing themselves, and consequently making less use of hedges. To investigate this I have compared the mean number of hedges used in the profiles of women from the three age categories my sample is divided into 20s, 40s and 60s. The data is presented below.

The chart above shows that there are no significant differences in the number of hedges used in the dating website profiles of the females in my sample based on their age. Thus I can conclude that the differences in the number of hedges used by the women are instead due to other factors, perhaps cultural or sub cultural variations, or just differences in personalities and communication styles of the individuals. The trend of females using more hedges than males was evident in all three of the age categories, when the men and women in each range were compared separately.

Use of Adjectives

Lakoff also suggested that women make far more use of empty adjectives than men, adjectives without a clearly descriptive meaning. Examples would include: wonderful, lovely, nice and gorgeous. I decided to investigate whether this was true of individuals writing dating website personal profiles. Below is a diagram showing the mean number of empty adjectives contained in the profiles in my sample by age and gender.


There does not seem to be a clear gender divide in the use of empty adjectives, in the 20-29 age category the diagram appears to show that men made far more use of empty adjectives than women, this is because of one individual anomalous profile which contained 10 empty adjectives, the other profiles in the category averaged at 1.5 empty adjectives, a figure similar to the mean number used by females of the same age.

There is a slight increase in the average number of empty adjectives the profiles contain with age. The mean number for both men and women in the 20s category is just under 3, for the 40s category it is 4, and for the 60s category it is just under 6.

A stereotypical idea about female language use is that women use more adjectives, more descriptive language and more small detail. However, in her study of gender differences in language use, Cheryl Kramer [2] found no significant difference in the number of pronominal adjectives used by females in comparison to males, although individuals drawn from the same population she studied perceived there to be a difference. I am interested to find whether there is a notable difference in adjective use between the genders when it comes to writing dating website profiles. The diagrams below show what percentage of the words in the main body of the female’s dating profiles are adjectives, in comparison to the percentage of adjectives in the profiles of males.  

As the diagrams show, there is no significant difference in the percentage of adjectives in the male and female profiles, this supports the findings of Cheryl Kramer. I also found no consistent gender difference in the variety of different adjectives used. Some of the profiles in my sample written by males used a wide variety of different adjectives, for example “unconventional”, “tactile”, “sparky”, as did some of the female profiles, where as other profiles by both stuck far more to a limited range of common adjectives e.g “good”, “funny”, “nice”. This evidence again contradicts the common stereotype of women using more and more  varied descriptive language in comparison to males.

Desireable Characteristics in Males and Females.

In many ways profiles on internet dating websites, like those in my sample taken from www.match.com, are the 21st century equivalent of lonely hearts advertisements, although the traditional adverts do still feature in many papers. The main difference between the two is that profiles on internet sites are not confined to a specific number of words; because of this people tend to go into much more detail on their internet profiles, and the use of acronyms e.g. “GSOH” (good sense of humour) is not as common, individuals are far more likely to write longhand. Where shortened spellings of words, acronyms etc. are used, they are usually those that are common in online communication rather than newspaper lonely hearts ads, and have probably been used to save time rather than space. Another difference between the two is that internet profiles normally feature a photograph.

Much research has been conducted into gender differences in the content of newspaper lonly hearts advertisements. One finding that was consistently reported in many studies, is that in the adverts men generally offer financial security and request physical attractiveness, whilst women offer physical attractiveness and request financial security This reinforces traditional gender stereotypes of women as sex-objects and men as success-objects. This was found to be the case in studies conducted by Cameron, Oskamp, & Sparks (1977) [3], and Smith, Waldorf, and Trembath (1990)[4]. I decided to investigate whether this difference is also observable in the modern internet dating profiles in my sample. The diagram below shows the percentage of profiles of males and females in my sample that claim to be attractive and/or fit or advertise their financial security, and the percentage that ask for these characteristics in potential partners.


As the chart shows, the males in my sample appear to be the most concerned with appearance, with approximately 55% claiming to be good looking and/or fit on their profiles, and the same amount requesting attractiveness in partners. One third of women claimed to have an attractive appearance on their profiles, and just over 20% said that it was important for their partner to be attractive. The higher percentage of men than women asking that their partner is attractive is consistent with the results from studies of lonely hearts advertisements, but the fact that more men than women also advertise their own attractiveness is not. However as all of the profiles in my sample also included images of the individuals, these results are not necessarily an indication that the women consider their appearance less important in attracting a partner, instead it could be that they feel that the photos make it unnecessary to write about their appearance.

Only three out of the eighteen profiles in my sample mention financial security, and in all three cases it is the financial security of males that is mentioned, this supports the evidence found in studies of lonely hearts advertisements. Two men advertise solvency, and one woman requests it in a partner. Both of the men are in the 60-69 category, and the woman is in the 40-49 category.  Although definite conclusions cannot be drawn from a sample of just 18 profiles, it is possible that the reason for this is that financial security is more important to the older generation when looking for a partner. This could be because in modern times men and women are far more equal in society, and so women are much less likely to rely on a partner to support them financially. Older individuals are more likely to retain traditional values and still see it is important for the male in a relationship to be the provider.

Most of the profiles in my sample also mention personality and characteristics, both those requested in a partner, and those the individual claims to possess. I was interested to discover whether there are gender differences in the characteristics asked for and advertised. The diagram below shows the percentage of males and females in my sample that advertise and request various characteristics.

The graph shows that some characteristics do seem to be linked to/considered more desirable in a particular gender. Nearly 80% of the females in my sample specified that they wanted their partner to be funny or witty, or have a good sense of humour, and just over 40% of males said this is characteristic they possess. In comparison only about 20% of women made similar claims and only 20% of men said it was something they looked for in a partner. It is a common stereotype that women are not as funny as men, and one of Lakoff’s assumptions about women’s language was that they do not tell jokes as well as men, or understand punchlines. However the high percentage of women specifying that their partner must be funny contradicts this, as an individual without a sense of humour is unlikely to value wit in a partner.

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Another attribute that seems to be more highly valued in males is to be “hardworking”.  Over 30% of males in my sample advertised themselves as being hard workers, and over 20% of females said this was something they wanted in a partner.  No men said this was something they looked for in women, and no women wrote that is was a characteristic they possessed. This could be connected to the focus on financial stability in males found in previous studies of lonely hearts advertisements, and to a certain extent in my investigation. An individual who is hardworking is more likely ...

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