We made this research to reflect the comparison of themes identified in the ads between men seeking women and women seeking men. We have been made a two-stage content analysis of personal ads detailing men seeking women and vice versa.
Method
Materials: The data was taken from approximately one hundred (100) personal ads appearing in “Evening Standard Metro-Life” from 4th to 10th of February 2005. From those ads, fifty (50) of them were men seeking women and fifty (50) of them were women seeking men.
Procedure: Our sampling strategy was selecting every second ad from the fifty (50) of men seeking women and from the fifty (50) of women seeking men. We then came up with a total of forty (40) ads, twenty (20) of them were men seeking women and the least twenty (20) was women seeking men. We also developed a coding frame of the following sub-categories in order to analyze data. Those sub-categories were ‘Use of humor’, ‘Mention of own interests’, ‘Mentions their own emotional/ personality characteristics’, ‘Requests particular emotional/ personality characteristics of others’, ‘Types of relationship being sought’, ‘Mentions job/ status’, ‘Requests a particular job/ status’ and ‘Mentions own race/ ethnicity’. Data were analyzed in SPSS 16.0.
Results
In general, results of our frequency analysis vary among men seeking women and women seeking men. In many categories we expected different results. All of the following eight (8) categories had a numeric type of analysis with values ‘0’ meaning ‘No’ and ‘1’ meaning ‘Yes’, apart from the ‘Types of relationship being sought’ category where the values were ‘Fr’ for ‘Friendship’, ‘Fu’ for ‘Fun’, ‘Re’ for ‘Relationship’, ‘Ro’ for ‘Romance’ and ‘S’ for ‘Sex’.
Use of humor: As we can see in this frequency analysis (‘Use of humor’ descriptive statistic), only 15% of women used humor in their ads instead of 45% of men. This shows us that men are emphasizing in the sense of humor more that women do.
Mention of own interests: With the percentage of 55% of men referring their interests, only 40% of women did the same. That doesn’t mean that women are not having any interests or less interests than men, but men are trying to present themselves as energetic.
Mentions their own emotional/ personality characteristics: In this category both genders have scored high, females 65% and males 75%, and this may mean two things. The first one is that people that are seeking someone via personal ads are more self-centered. The second one is that they are trying to present themselves as being full of confidence and knowledge.
Requests particular emotional/ personality characteristics of others: In this category females scored higher than males in seeking someone with the same or almost the same emotional and personality characteristics. Males had the same percentage at ‘Yes’ as at ‘No’ (50% both) rather than 60% of females.
Types of relationship being sought: In this category females are mostly seeking relationship with a percentage of 45%, then with a 25% they seem to seek for sex. Later on comes friendship with 15%, romance with 10% and fun with 5%. On the other hand males are seeking for friendship. That shows as the 35% that they score in this category. After that, sex is coming with a 25%, the same as females scored, to end up with a 20% score in relationship and a 10% score in both fun and romance. It is obvious that females are trying to enter a relationship at once rather than males, that they were interested in friendship for the beginning as the relationship can follow.
Mentions job/ status: In both genders there was a high score in haven’t mentioned their job or status. Females scored 80% and males scores 75%.
Requests a particular job/ status: In this group there was an even greater percentage of haven’t requested a particular job or status, compared to the previous one. Females scored 75% and males scored 90%. That means that neither females nor males are paying attention to a particular job or status. That is why they did not find it important to refer to their job or status as well.
Mentions own race/ ethnicity: In this group males scored in the average whereas females had a 65% of referring their race or ethnicity.
Discussion
We found out from that research that males are using humor as well as their interests to attract a female. Another think that it is worth mentioned is that both genders scored highly in mentioning things about their emotional or personality status, meaning that they are probably self-centered and trying to look confident, on the other hand females are willing to find someone with the same emotional or personality status. Another interesting aspect of this research was that females are mostly seeking someone to get in a relationship with them at once, whereas males are mostly paying attention to a good friendship that can be developed to a romantic relationship. Finally, two other things that we found out was that both males and females don’t really care about job status and that females are more open-minded and ‘capable’ on mentioning their race or ethnicity.
To conclude with, it seems obvious that there is a need in conducting more researches about decoding personal ads and what may be beneath them.
References
Anon (2005, February 4-10) Meeting point. Evening Standard Metro-Life
Cameron, C., Oskamp, S., & Sparks, W. (1977). Courtship American style: Newspaper ads. The Family Coordinator, 26, 27-30
Hatala, M. N., Milewski, K. and Baack, D. W. (1999). Downloading love: A content analysis of Internet personal advertisements placed by college students, College Student Journal, 33(1), 124-130
