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From Reddit's "Today I Learned" section:

TIL Women find 80% of men below-average looking - according to research based on OkCupid's 7 million users.

  1. Is this an accurate summary of OKCupid's research?
  2. Is OKCupid's research valid? (other than the obvious criticism that their data has a built in selction bias of being confined to OKCupid userbase).
  3. Is that conclusion corroborated by other research?

A more general form of the claim is discussed here (basically, that Pareto principle applies to dating).

user5341
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  • Couldn't quite figure out how to tag this, feel free to retag – user5341 Jul 13 '17 at 01:21
  • Tangentially, that same link showed that men's ratings were a bell shaped symmetrical curve with what looked like normal(ish) distribution. – user5341 Jul 13 '17 at 01:22
  • I'm not sure the first question is relevant since they provide a link to OkCupid's report. – rjzii Jul 13 '17 at 02:25
  • I didn't have time to research #3 in detail, but bumped into purported Tinder statistics that seems very close (Women swipe right 15% of time, men 50% - vs OKCupid's ~20%/50%). Not really sure how methodologically sound Tinder swipe counts are. – user5341 Jul 13 '17 at 13:09
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    Maybe good-looking men don't use OKCupid, because they can easily get dates without it?? – GEdgar Jul 13 '17 at 13:26
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    @GEdgar - given general dating dynamics, that statement is probably even more applicable to women than men (there's generally less women than men on such sites iirc) – user5341 Jul 13 '17 at 13:29
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    One question to ask is whether "looks" are normally distributed. That is, there are relatively few good-looking people, but they are very good looking, so they skew the average. – jamesqf Jul 13 '17 at 18:28
  • @sklivvz - sorry, I rolled back your subject line edit - (1) the general non-OKCupid claim can be found (though rooted in link to that research) easily; (2) my main subj-question is #3, asking for corroborating research. I only ask #1 and #2 in the unlikely case the headline was misleading or OKC results completely wrong somehow (both of which seem unlikely) – user5341 Jul 13 '17 at 19:12
  • Please add a relevant quote then. – Sklivvz Jul 13 '17 at 22:48
  • @Sklivvz - here's representative claim citing tinder: http://theformerfatkid.net/why-most-men-dont-get-laid-on-tinder/. – user5341 Jul 14 '17 at 15:02
  • Here's a study that might be relevant - there is greater consensus among men about what is "attractive" : [Rating Attractiveness: Consensus Among Men, Not Women, Study Finds](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090626153511.htm) – ColleenV Jul 14 '17 at 17:24
  • Here's another [How Tinder “Feedback Loop” Forces Men and Women into Extreme Strategies](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601909/how-tinder-feedback-loop-forces-men-and-women-into-extreme-strategies/) – ColleenV Jul 14 '17 at 17:29

1 Answers1

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Yes, see the original article at OkCupid:
Your Looks and Your Inbox, How men and women perceive attractiveness

As to the specific questions :

  1. Seems to be an accurate description
  2. Depends on the definition of valid - the methodology seems to support the narrow claims, but because of selection bias and other factors, not necessarily strong enough to support drawing broader conclusions.
  3. I would go with a weak yes here, there is some psychological research in the area, some of which points to celebrity culture and other things distorting the standard, but there doesn't seem to be something definitive.
Ofir
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