Investigating sexual strategies in a social community website

Krause, Martin and Spörrle, Matthias (July 2008): Investigating sexual strategies in a social community website. International Congress of Psychology, Berlin, Germany, 20. - 25. July 2008. International Journal of Psychology. Vol. 43, No. 3/4 p. 105

Abstract

In this exploratory study we tried to corroborate existing findings of Sexual Strategies Theory (SST, Buss & Schmitt, 1993) by using data collected from an online community. A random sample of N = 460 German user profiles was drawn from Myspace, a social networking website. Sexual interests reported by the users were analyzed separately for men and women: “Dating” served as an indicator of short-term and interest in “Serious Relationship” as an indicator of long-term sexual strategy. Consistent with SST, a higher percentage of male than female users was interested in dating. However, men were also more interested in serious relationships, indicating that online partner search itself might be a short-term sexual strategy.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Poster)
• Keywords: Sexual Strategies Theory, SST, social networks, website, Theorie der sexuellen Strategien, soziale Netzwerke, Internetauftritt
• Faculties: Psychology and Education Science > Department Psychology > General Psychology II > Conference proceedings
• Subjects: 100 Philosophy and Psychology > 150 Psychology
• Language: English

References

Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual Strategies Theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204-232.